An *Actual* Chicken Cartoon

I love it when I get into the cartooning mood and this morning, I woke up with a couple of crazy ideas for cartoons. Cartoons involving chickens.

But before I get to that, I'd like to present a little Two Beans Or Not Two Beans trivia factoid for you lovely readers: did you know that if Hanny the Coffee Bean hadn't had the brilliant idea of using Microsoft Paint, my blog posts wouldn't have had cartoons at all?

I'm not joking about that.

At the very dawn of founding our corner of the Internet, I expressed to Hanny that I wanted to have cartoons to explain my blog posts. Actual pen-and-ink drawings that I crafted with my own hand.

However, I fretted about it due to one minor technicality: I didn't own a scanner.

"How am I supposed to make cartoons if I can't scan them?!" I asked my partner-in-crime. "Do I draw them and then take pictures with my camera? Do you know how dumb that will look? I mean, who wants to see a picture of a drawing?"

"Just use Paint," Hanny coolly reasoned.

It's hard to believe, but until that painfully obvious suggestion came, I had not even considered making my cartoons using a computer. It was a foreign concept to me and a daunting one at that. Ditch paper and pencils for pixels and a keypad? Will I even be good at it?


Turns out that I don't do such a terrible job at it and I have since embraced being able to make full color cartoons in a few clicks without developing a severe, crippling cramp in my right hand.

Lately, though, I was at a loss for doing that. Even if I had an idea, no matter how insignificant it was, I couldn't be bothered to open Paint to make the cartoon. It wasn't until I woke up this morning when it hit me. Just for once, I'd actually like to make a cartoon by hand, not on Paint, as if I wanted to get back to my cartooning roots. It's just what felt right and realizing there are no paradigms to creativity is something that I have to constantly remind myself.

So, for the time-being, here is one of the dumb cartoons that popped into my mind. 

(Oh, by the way, even after so many years of living in a world filled with technological advances, I still don't own a scanner. In the end, I've taken a photo of a drawing, the very thing I avoided doing right from the origin of this little blog. Ha. Ha. HA.)

Sorry, son. You've been cock-blocked.

I'll admit that I wasn't trying hard to make an excellent cartoon. But I came to the realization that my artistic skills are a bit rusty, meaning they have totally deteriorated to a level which embarrasses me. Here are some drawings from my past so you can compare them to the simplistic chicken and rooster:

Sea turtle

Multi-tasking octopus. I remember that the word "multi-tasking" was very in vogue back in the day.

A lobster and a shrimp (prawn)

Even Atlanteans need a few arrows of love.

A Florida Marlin. Gotta root for the home team.

Clown fish with an anemone, circa post-"Finding Nemo"

Sea slugs that are clearly snails *head desk*

A Flamenco dancer to represent Spanish class...

...and a frog to represent French class. This was WAY before I realized I would one day live in France and come to utterly despise the whole frogs = France stereotype. 

This Killer Whale/Orca was my favorite of the cartoons. Probably because it was a bitch to color in all the dark areas and it gave me a sense of accomplishment after it ate up two ballpoint pens in the process. 

I did these drawings for my high school's nautical-themed yearbook when I was a Senior. I was seventeen. Turning into a responsible adult who can't even draw a below sub-standard chicken makes me want to tear my hair out.

Anyway, I did say I had ideas for chicken cartoons (plural). Whether or not I will express myself by sitting down and drawing them, or chicken out and rely on Paint once more, will be determined in the future. Rest assured, though, I will continue to make all the lovely, wonky pixelated illustrations you've grown to love.

Translation: that means that I'm too broke to buy coloring and art supplies, let alone a scanner.

Barb the French Bean

Writer's Block at its Finest

If you have ever experienced writer's block, then you know how frustrating it feels. You have the right ideas, but you lack the words. Sometimes you have no idea what to write, you are scraping for words, nothing seems to be coming out right and the next thing you know you have a whole bunch of "blob" (a bunch of words that make gibberish easy to read).

This is something I experienced for a few weeks. It's not that I can't think of what to write, it's more along the lines that I can't seem to express myself in writing, the way I used to.

For the past few weeks, I have sat with a paper and pen searching for my way back into writing and yet I ended up blank. Other than coming up blank, I would end up in a writing war with my paper and pen.

In the darkness boldness alley of yonder your hill...

She held her breath foot teeth...

Leggo my eggo Hamilton! (Me: Who the fuck is Hamilton?!)

In the alley of your hill she held her..." leggo my eggo Hamilton!"

After forcing myself to write, I realized that I was getting nowhere. So I decided to sleep on it. Of course, that didn't help much.

Then I kept hearing it and then it went on and then it dripped and then I saw the water and then...

She missspelled miss spelled misspelled the lectrue lecutre lecture sentence...

I hate you! You damn fucking peace of crap! work you ass, work!! (I am guilty of screaming at my working pen).

Needless to say, I resorted to taking my frustrations out by drawing my usual stick figures...

But that only helped my crazy come out...

Well it could have been worse...

It took at least two weeks to finally start writing again without feeling frustrated, but throughout the two weeks I learned a lot about myself.

#1: Some of my drawings look like drunk drawings (I was actually sober when I drew them!)

#2: My imagination and thoughts are extremely odd (Maybe I can become the next Tim Burton?)

#3: I can never write a children's book.

#4: Writer's block has me thinking of other stuff like furry walls
(watch starting on 3:18 if you don't want to see the whole thing)

I am so glad I don't have writer's block anymore.

-Hanny the coffee bean