Anybody interested in a mermaid comic? I've been sitting on a script since late 2016. But before we talk about that, here's a thing I drew for Inktober...

Hey fam,

When I saw that the theme for day 3 of Inktober was BAIT, I almost immediately knew I would do a riff on mermaids.

A little backstory:

When my marriage ended, I was devastated, but I made an honest effort to be as upbeat as possible. I reluctantly re-branded myself as an eligible bachelor, and one of my Facebook friends showed interest in me.

She referred to herself more than once as a mermaid, so I drew a series of mermaid drawings, starting with the infectiously self-congratulatory Other Fish.

The remaining mermaid drawings were largely about this particular woman's reluctance to go beyond flirting with me, or maybe my inability to offer something that would close the sale, so to speak.

After we gave up on each other, I wrote a sweet melancholy wordless mermaid comic about it that I never got around to drawing. I suspect I will get to it at some point.

Whatever the case, this new piece is not about that relationship at all, but I do imagine that it's in the same universe.

BAIT by Samax Amen
PITT Artist Pen .3 in my Big Black Sketchbook
Finished with Adobe Photoshop + cintiq
11x14 signed print $40.

I'm not sure if I am the fisherman in BAIT or not. The star of this piece is not the fisherman, but the mermaid.

In the first drawing, the mermaid seems delighted to have been scooped out of the ocean by the proud fisherman. Interestingly, the next piece portrays a fisherman whose motives are not exactly clear and a mermaid who is understandably cautious.

The man in the third piece is putting himself at risk campaigning for the affection of his costar, whose ambiguous expression exposes almost no clue as to what her impending response might be.

As the title implies, the unseen angler in BAIT is clearly a threat to the mermaid. For the first time in the series of drawings, we can see that the bait obscures a sharp hook.

Also unlike the previous drawing, the fisherman is a coward, employing the childish tactic of sending his "boy" to speak for him. Although this tactic must work some of the time, our heroine is clearly not having it.

Anyways, if you wanna buy a signed 11x14 print of BAIT, just click the button below to drop $40 via Paypal, and she's all yours (includes domestic shipping).

"BAIT" Print $40