Oct. 3. Spidermania Progress
I finished the first draft of my script for Spidermania (so many spiders!), including a tentative outline for the More to Explore section about confronting your fears. The outline assumes that I will overcome my fear of spiders, so I guess I’d better make it happen!
Oct 4. Other Bugs
Spider-related comic on Savage Chickens.
Oct 9. Tarantula
Janet got me a remote-controlled tarantula. One step closer to my goal of hanging out with tarantulas!
Oct 18. The Drawing Begins!
Spent a bunch of time drawing spiders today. I’m trying to get a good sense of the character design before I get into drawing the first draft pages!
Oct 19. One Spider, Two Spiders?
Another spider-related comic on Savage Chickens today.
Just before bed, Janet spotted a spider on the bedroom ceiling. She thought it was two spiders but it turned out that one spider was just the shadow of the other. I captured it with my mason-jar-and-greeting-card combo and took it down to the stairwell to release it. Took a few pictures first and figured it was a black-footed giant yellow sac spider.
Oct 20. Zeb’s Spider
Watched the National Film Board’s animated short “Zeb’s Spider”. Not the ending I expected!
Oct 22. Spiders Everywhere
I walked through a spider web in the park today. Just a few strands but it was enough to make me paw at my face for several blocks. Just in time to spot a gigantic inflatable spider on top of a nearby building!
Oct 23. Editing Spidermania
Got feedback on my Spidermania script from my editor Jean at Andrews McMeel. Lots of great advice, which means that I need to do a bit more tinkering with the script. I’m happy to see the story coming together! Jean says “Boy you really leaned into your fear of spiders in this one!” I most certainly did!
Oct 25. Spooky Times
It’s getting close to Halloween and there are spiders everywhere! I must be getting more comfortable with them, because I bought a giant spider at Dollarama and wore it on my head for a while.
Oct 27. Near Miss!
Trapped another yellow sac spider in the bedroom tonight. Just when I thought I was getting pretty comfortable with capturing spiders, I had a bit of a close call with this one. The spider was on the ceiling, and when I held the mason jar up to cover the spider, I didn’t get it against the ceiling properly, and the spider freaked out and raced around before I could get the greeting card wedged between the jar and the ceiling – and the spider fell off the ceiling! Which freaked me out immensely. But luckily it fell into the jar. I clapped the greeting card over the top of the jar and went off to release the spider in the stairwell at the other end of the building. Phew!
October 30. Even Scones Aren’t Safe
There’s no getting away from spiders when it’s Halloween. Even my pumpkin scone has a giant spider web on it!
You need ants.
Jumping spiders are the best. Despite their name, they are totally safe and very cute. They get overlooked a lot because most are tiny, but they have real character.
And some are really pretty. Look up “peacock spider” and see some videos of the cute mating dance they do to romance their partner.
Here is a lovely page about them here in Australia:
https://museumsvictoria.com.au/article/the-wild-west-of-peacock-spider-research/
There are plenty of jumping spiders in USA too. They are just easy to overlook.