Elasti-Girl

Over thirty years ago, I did my one and only job for DC Comics, which was a pinup page in their Who's Who series. This particular series was comprised of oversized loose-leaf pages meant to go into a binder (sold separately). Each character was drawn by a different artist, with bio pages on opposite sides.

Back in 1990, I was a newbie. I had submitted some comic book penciling samples to Vertigo editors, mostly of Sandman characters, Animal Man and John Constantine, which were my personal favorites.

Tom Peyer, who was then the editor on both Animal Man and Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol, liked my early pencil attempts and gave this unknown artist a chance by assigning me a nearly forgotten character: early Doom Patrol member, Rita Farr, aka Elasti-Girl, who was still "deceased" at that point in time. She got better, however. In the long tradition of superheroes, she was magically resurrected years later, *finally* changing her name to Elasti-Woman. Currently, the character is brilliantly portrayed by April Bowbey in the fantastically bizarre Doom Patrol television series (which I love!)

This was one of my very early comic book jobs and I was still learning. It would take a brilliant inker to make my uncertain pencil lines have more life and style, and for thirty years, the identity of this inker had remained a mystery...

… until 2020.

Tom Peyer had wanted the same white cover panel that was then featured on issues of Doom Patrol to feature in the illustration, so that was what I built the composition around. Because this was pre-internet, I had been mailed photocopied reference about the character, whom I had been unfamiliar with, despite having been an avid reader of Morrison's run on the series. From these, I was able to research her, and I learn what her powers were. My initial idea was making a sort of movie poster, depicting her more gigantic aspect; sort of, "Attack of the 50-Foot Elasti-Woman." I also remember trying to base her appearance loosely on Emma Thompson.

In the crowd scene below her are various little characters. And yes, the guy who looks like he's missing his arms actually had them bent back at a weird angle, but it looks hilarious today. I even included a tiny John Constantine. I'm thankful to the colorist, Anthony Tollin, for getting this and giving him blonde hair and a beige trench coat. (Including Costantine was an in-joke that made Tom laugh on the phone— which is how you talked to editors long distance in those days before email.)

I also drew little pictures for the bio-side of the page, of different stages of Rita's life. Mark Waid was the writer of the text.

However, the inker was listed as "Alan Smithee," which was a pseudonym that was notoriously used by film directors who didn't want their name associated with their projects. "Alan Smithee" was obviously a professional, and he had managed to make my novice pencils look both stylish and polished. (This was long before I had learned to ink myself with any confidence.) Friends in the comic industry had recognized Ty Templeton's style instantly—but it was only in 2020, when I was told about a wonderful planned podcast about the DC Who's Who binder series, that someone actually asked Ty on Twitter if this was indeed his work, and he finally confirmed it.

A thirty-year mystery finally solved!

I remember being amazed at having been sent a check from DC even before I'd finished the work. It seemed unbelievable because it sometimes took independent publishers months to pay me for work, and then sometimes only in installments. (You could understand why I've always maintained a steady day job ever since.) You'll see that my name is credited as "Lorraine Szramski" here, rather than my nickname Raine. My full name ended up on the paycheck and it's also what ended up here.

For the record, my last name is pronounced Shram-skee. The z (zed) throws everyone off. However, I'm more than used to my name being mangled by now, lol.

I want to thank the Fire and Water team for such a fantastic podcast and for all their kind words about my artwork, both past and present. (The segment about Elasti-Girl starts at about the 35:30 mark.) I thank them again for contacting me with questions about this old illustration.

I also want to extend a huge thank you to Ty Templeton for having anonymously helped me out when I was a beginner. He enhanced my original pencils with his gorgeous inking style, and I've waited three decades to tell him how much I appreciated that!

Gentleman Krampus

 

He knows when you've been bad.

I'd been threatening for years to make a Krampus Christmas card and I ended up making two of them. I wrote about the first sketches for them in a blog post from waaaaay back in 2012 and ended up finally completing them in 2015 and 2016. 

For all who don't know, in the Alpine regions of Europe, St. Nick has a sidekick, who sort of works as "bad cop" to his "good cop": this is Herr Krampus. My version of him looks a bit more gentlemanly and Victorian. I was inspired by seeing a video of a Krampusnacht  parade and one dapper costumed Krampus in a top hat kissing a lady's hand.

Krampus Nacht happens on the 5th of December, but I find that the horned rascal is festive enough for the whole holiday season. 

I began the illustrations by photocopying these early sketchbook cartoons from 2012, enlarging them to trace on my lightbox onto bristol paper.

I had wanted to paint and ink them in full color this time, adding a decorative circle motif to each. I ended up using not only my gouache and ink pens, but my colored pencils as well.    

I began by inking the outlines with colored waterproof brush pens, animation style. Then I gradually started layering acrylic gouache on top of them, going with red, green, amber and gray as my color schemes.

In some old art of Krampus, he is shown as having both a cloven foot and a more bestial, claw-like foot. I decided to do that with one of my versions of him.

As well as being somewhat Dickensian, the clothes he is wearing are inspired by early 19th century German men's fashion, with some liberties taken. I really liked the wider-brimmed top hats of the period. 


Here's the first of my Krampuses— Krampi?— to be finished. I scanned it into Photoshop to do some clean-up on the image. While many people do all of their work digitally these days, I still prefer traditional paint and ink on paper. For me, working with physical pencils, pens and brushes is therapeutic. However, I will eventually use Photoshop to help clean up and refine the finished version before I share it.

I had actually painted two versions of the first Krampus (the one with the long tongue) and had decided almost toward the end that I didn't like the colors I was using; and so, I fussily started a new one from scratch. (This is also what happens when you use traditional methods.) I used the first version as a "study" to hopefully improve the second version.

In the past, some of my old paintings had gone through three different versions before I had gotten to one that I liked. Sometimes it's fun to take an old piece of artwork you've done and remake it with the skills you've hopefully learned since your first attempt. 

This wasn't one of those times, however.

What happened was that the second version came out almost identical to the first version. My first version hadn't been as bad as I had originally thought and now, I had two similar paintings. I ended up giving one of them away as a Christmas present.

Sometimes, you just need to put something down and walk away from it before you let yourself get too frustrated with it. Sometimes you might already be on the right track.

Finally, I turned both versions of Gentleman Krampus, the dashing rapscallion, into Christmas cards.

Have a happy Yule, everyone, and remember that he knows when you've been bad or good.

                                           ...Especially when you've been bad. 

Thirteen Faces the Storm and Grins

The night before the 13th Doctor's identity was announced, there was a strong monsoon storm in my part of the world, with thunder, lightning and violent winds that knocked trees over. “Ah, this must mean there's going to be a woman Doctor,” I had joked online. I was delighted to have been correct. But the storm seemed to be a harbinger of things to come. Not only was the reaction to her ceiling-smashing incarnation ridiculously tumultuous—but the world itself was going to be facing major challenges in the next few years of her tenure as Doctor.  

I absolutely loved the Thirteenth Doctor. I was in her camp from day one and I knew she would be amazing.

Jodie Whittaker was revealed as the new Doctor, in a clip of her walking through a forest toward the TARDIS. When she lifted the hood of her coat, it was almost magical, like a moment from a fairy tale. I may not be a little girl anymore (at least not in the temporal sense), but I felt that overwhelming joy that girls around the world must have felt then. It felt sensible and earth-shaking at the same time to have the Doctor finally be a woman.

(above left) This was my first interpretation of her, in the forest, having found the TARDIS. I'd put a pocket watch in all of my Doctor pictures and getting 13 on it in Roman numerals was going to tricky. I decided to start with 12 at the top and put 13 in the number one position. That way, I also had room for the next eleven Doctors as well. 

Of course, there are still those out there who would never accept the Doctor's newest transition—and I didn't care. I thought she was great. 

Jodie Whittaker has had one of the toughest Doctor tenures in the nearly 60-year history of Doctor Who. Not only is she the first woman to be cast as the famous shapeshifting alien Time Lord, but world events would shadow her time in the TARDIS with existential fear and uncertainty.

With her warm, breathless enthusiasm, she was the perfect incarnation to see us all through this. 

The global pandemic contributed to a rocky production schedule, new safety guidelines and therefore decreased episodes. Yet, the Thirteenth Doctor remained unflappable, reassuring, optimistic. It was Jodie Whittaker’s short video “5 Things the Doctor Does in Any Worrying Situation” that epitomized why she was so perfect in the role.

With her rainbow striped shirt, her oversized coat, her wide-eyed enthusiasm for adventure and her love and support for her TARDIS team—her “fam”— the 13th Doctor never failed to be a joy. Some of her fam moved on (Graham and Ryan), but one moved even closer to her. (Yaz.)

Thirteen soon became my comfort Doctor. When there were no new episodes with her, I sought out other media. Books and comics. I even bought and read books specifically targeted for very young readers. She and her fam were fun, funny, energetic and enthusiastic and their adventures were just what I needed when I was stuck indoors.

(above) An illustration I finished for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society for the cover of Cosmic Masque.

(right) Yaz and the Doctor, one of many sketchbook drawings I did, inspired by the 13th Doctor's episodes that I would like to go back and finish. 

On her travels, we got to meet such famous historical figures as Ada Lovelace and Rosa Parks and Nikola Tesla. We met a diabolical new Master played by the brilliant Sacha Dhawan. We learned a deep, well-hidden Time Lord secret in "The Timeless Children". We also met Jo Martin's amazing “Fugitive” Doctor—whom we need so much more of because she nailed the essence of the Doctor so quickly and completely in her brief appearances.

(left) I loved the episode, "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror", as I've always having been fascinated with the scientist.

The 13th Doctor was also an inventor (she fashioned her sonic screwdriver out of Sheffield spoons), and I wanted an excuse to draw her with her goggles. Very steampunk. Another sketch to do a finished version of.

Most importantly, we discovered that the Doctor seemed endless. Her history was diverse and inclusive, and anyone could be an aspect of her future and her past. There was room for all of us.

(right) One of the many pictures I drew with the newly discovered "Fugitive" Doctor from a pre-Hartnell incarnation. Just how far back did the Doctor go? I was thrilled to have the once-mysterious "Morbius" Doctors from the Fourth Doctor's era, to now be canon.

I'm writing this post the day before Jodie Whittaker's last Doctor Who adventure. I will miss her and her resilience in the face of opposition, as well as her big grin in the face of the oncoming storm. I'll miss her sense of wonder when making discoveries. I will remember the comfort her Doctor gave me in some personally difficult times. She follows in the booted footsteps of my beloved 12th Doctor, living up to her predecessor’s regeneration advice:

 “Run fast, laugh hard, be kind.”

And now her time has come to shift into her next form.
Despite the heartbreak of saying goodbye, I welcome the excitement and wonder of yet another regeneration and getting to meet our next Doctor, who will be played by Ncuti Gatwa.

I can’t wait to start another adventure.

A Titan Cover (Part 2): A Clockwork Squirrel

First Scribbles

I mentioned in my last post that I had been contacted by Titan Comics to do a variant cover for one of the Doctor Who lines, and that I had picked Twelve as the Doctor I had wanted to start with. (Because, of course.)

So, after much doodling and scribbling in my sketchbook, trying to brainstorm, I finally settled on an idea.

This was the small thumbnail sketch; very, very rough and only about five inches tall. It might be hard to see in such a scribbly form, but the idea was that the Twelfth Doctor is tuning his guitar with his sonic screwdriver.

Behind him is the double-ringed planet I had put in my very first Capaldi picture (yes, I know, self-referential) and on his amplifier is the clockwork squirrel that Twelve was mentioned as having built and which was seen only once in the show.

"Squirrel" is also an in-joke with a friend of mine (*ahem* Sandra) — and I couldn't resist. (Whenever she came across DW filming locally in Wales, she claimed to just be out "taking pictures of squirrels in the park.")

The idea to tune the guitar came about because I had written some Blake's 7 fan-fiction (yes, you heard right) on the Horizon fan club site, based on some group prompts. "Creation" was about the character Dayna building a harp and fellow crew member Vila stealing a tuning fork for her. While writing it, I found myself looking up tuning forks and discovered that they're electronic now (I'm slow), which made me think it would be sort of like having an actual sonic screwdriver.

Hmmm...

That was the germ of the illustration's idea.

I was grateful to a fellow employee at the bookstore where I worked at the time, for kindly lending me his electric guitar as a prop. I had also ordered the 12th Doctor's blue sonic screwdriver which I also ended up using as a prop for more than one picture. (Plus, it's seriously cool and fun to play with.)

After taking quite a few laptop photos of myself posing with the guitar, I picked one of the more usable ones for reference.

And yes. I pose for my own illustrations all the time, and yes, they're always embarrassing to look at. And no, I don't want to show them to you. (Well, at least, not now. They're very silly.)

Now that I had my reference, I was off and drawing. And there was much erasing, too. 

The next step was the actual full-page working sketch in which I needed to get the anatomy and likeness right, as well: one of the hardest things that needs to be done for any illustration, but it ends up being the bones of the finished picture.

Larger Rough Sketch

Now I had my working sketch done. It still looks pretty rough here, but I save all of the tightening up — the fun part! — for the finished version. The next step, however, was photocopying it to the size I needed it and tracing it on my lightbox, transferring it on to comic illustration board.

I gave much more space to the top of the picture for the eventual logo, etc., and you'd be able to see more of the ringed planet in the background.

Ink and Paint

More progress.

After I'd transferred the drawing, I'd cleaned it up a bit, making further adjustments. I still have a lot of these comic boards left over from working on my comic, Heaven and the DeadCity, and they have a nice vellum surface, better for painting. They also have all the page dimensions I needed already printed on them.

I inked the drawing so I would still be able to see the black lines beneath the eventual paint that I added.

The next step was the first layer of paint, which was done in the usual grey-scale acrylic gouache. Here, I've worked out the shading, all the lights and darks. It's still very loose and rough at this stage, but it will tighten up as I continue to add detail and sharper lines.

The very last stage would be the color highlights, which would be blue for the sonic screwdriver and the Doctor's eyes, and maroon red for his velvet coat.

Adding Some Color...

One of the last steps was adding my accent colors. It's become a thing people recognize about my mostly monochrome artwork.

Here's a detail of a little bit of the red and blue I used over top the grey. After this, I moved on to defining the black lines a little more, as well as white highlights and other outlines.  This helped sharpen up some of the looser edges.

Finally, the end stage was to photograph it and then clean it and up some more in Photoshop, making a few more adjustments. (In other words, get rid of speckles and the inevitable cat hair and human hair that always lands somewhere in the paint where I don't notice it.)

And...done! And submitted.

My 12th Doctor Variant Cover for Titan Comics! (Complete with clockwork squirrel.)

And then the wait began to see it actually in print and inside a comic book shop.

A Titan Comics Cover (Part 1): Keeping It Cosmic

Have you ever just fooled around with some of your artwork, just for fun, and accidentally gotten a professional job out of it?

This happened to me a few years ago.

Because I hadn't been updating The Watcher Tree as much as I would have liked to in the past few years, I never did get around to writing about some of my recent milestones here. (I did, however, keep everyone updated on my Patreon as it was occurring.) This was one of them and was extremely exciting to me at the time.

All of the fooling around that I mentioned pretty much started back on October 1, 2013 and I blame Peter Capaldi for it. He had just been announced as the next incarnation of Doctor Who and I was part of a group of people who had sent him a welcoming present of fan art that Christmas.

At the time, we had no idea what his costume might look like, so this was my imagined take on it. I wasn't too far off— I was going for an "older Bowie" look. And I'd always liked his hair, well... bigger. I thought that made him look less like his other famous role of Malcolm Tucker. His hair would eventually achieve proper floof status, which made me very happy.

I found myself in previously uncharted realms. I was new to showing people my fan art. Drawing Doctor Who would lead to my being able to practice new techniques and show my art more publicly online. It led to my making a lot of new friends as well.

A few months later, Peter himself sent thank you messages to all who participated in the fan art presents. He loves fan art, being an artist himself, and he even drew us little planets and Daleks on signed postcards. (I have mine framed and hanging on the wall.) He wrote to me: "Keep it cosmic!" (I wrote a squee-ing Watcher Tree blog post about it almost a decade ago.) Coincidentally, when I finally got to meet him five years later, he also told me to "keep it cosmic". (I'll definitely write about that meeting in a future blog post.)

Well, this first foray into Doctor Who fan art led to a long project. I began to draw portraits of each of the Doctors in my sketchbook, accompanied this time by little fob-watches in the corners counting down their numbering, where I could also conveniently put my signature. (I also chronicled the progress of these illustrations in earlier posts on this blog.) 

I hadn't planned at the time to do finished versions of the sketches at all. Sadly, my dad died, quite suddenly. I was still in shock over it, and I found myself at home from work for a few weeks and needing something else to occupy my mind, to make me feel less helpless. I turned to my drawing table, just to give me something to do. I ended up barely leaving it. 

As it turned out, it was the distraction that I desperately needed.

I pulled out my gouache paints and started with a finished version of my Tenth Doctor drawing. He was my friend Sandra Franklin's favorite, and she would be flying in to visit from England the following week and I wanted to try and get it done for her to see.

I finished Ten in two days, a record time for me. (The other 14 pictures to follow weren't done in such a similarly sad fervor.)

After this, I thought, well, there's all the other Doctors to do, too. Keep going. Make it your new assignment.

So, I did.

(left) This is the sign I made to greet my friend Sandra at the airport. It was done the previous night in children's markers on poster board. It got a few laughs from the other passengers arriving from Las Vegas, too.

(Photo by Sandra Franklin.) 

Doctor Who Blank Sketch Covers

Titan Comics put out special blank sketch covers of their DW titles, so I decided to have a go playing with them. I took some of my own Doctor illustrations and made little mock-up covers, using the sketch cover as a template.  

This also helped me practice using Photoshop, which I still admit to being a novice with. I had to make modifications to the original art to make it fit around the logo; this took more time than I had intended. However, once I started fooling around with them, I lost track of the hours I was hunched over my laptop, but I remember having a blast pretending these were real. 

The resolution of the type in this first experiment (right) is too small, but I just wanted to see what my Ten might look like as a cover. As with the others I played with, I had to add more sky over his head and remove the clock in the corner.

(Here's an old post which explains the clock in each of my Doctor pictures. In the case of David Tennant, he's ten o'clock, of course.) I also added the little photo of the actor to the upper corner.

I then moved on to the Third and Fourth Doctors, repeating the process in order to make the logo fit. These ones turned out much better, I think. I didn't have a template for the Third Doctor, so I just had him "guest-star" in the Twelfth Doctor's comic. (I added my own small Twelve up in the corner.) Four had his own line, so it wasn't a problem there. 

Proud of my fun, I shared my fake covers on Twitter, and people seemed to like them. 

There was a misunderstanding in which someone thought I actually had done a variant cover for Titan, and I had to explain that no, these were not real, that I was just playing around with my own artwork. Coincidentally, at the time, there was a limited comics series featuring the Third Doctor written by Paul Cornell, with art by Chris Jones, and both of these creators saw my fake covers on Twitter as well. (Superb story, by the way. I bought all of the issues, and the collected volume can be found here.)

Then, to my utter surprise, Andrew James, who was then editor of the Titan Doctor Who line, contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a variant cover for real this time. 

                                                                           !!!!

I think you know how I responded. 

He asked, "Which Doctor would you like to start with...?"

It was pretty obvious which one I would choose: it was the one who had started all of this "fooling around" for me in the first place, and had been the subject of my first ever fan art. (And yes, it had taken me this long into adulthood to actively make fan art.) 

I was both ecstatic and terrified at the same time. The result would become my first ever professional comic book cover.

And so, I began trying to come up with an idea for a possible Twelfth Doctor cover. 

                              

                                            To be continued ...

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

 

This painting was started ten years ago. Really. Sometimes it takes me a while to get back to working on certain projects, but this is ridiculous. In this year's blistering Phoenix summer, I had just moved apartments. I had finally gotten a bigger one, one in which I could turn the bedroom into a studio/library/geek room. After the exhausting move (I have a lot of boxes of  books), I was looking forward to the cooled-off season which is supposedly autumn in the desert. It usually starts mid-October...if we're lucky. 
     

I unpacked my art supplies and looked at my Stack of Unfinished Pictures™, and this one of John Keats, based on his ode, "To Autumn," was at the top of it.

Back in 2013, I had even written a very early blog post on The Watcher Tree about it. I called that particular post "Starting Keats...(Part 1)" ...

...but I never did get around to "Part 2."

If you want to see all of the early steps of preparation and my slow process on this painting, I've got you covered in that post, which includes a lot of progress photos. This is how long it takes for me to work in color: it's a precarious balancing act for me. 

And so, here we finally are—a decade later.

I thought I needed to get 'To Autumn" done for Autumn 2022 and it would be the first thing I put on my drawing table in my new apartment.

A little about my idea here: I have a recurring leaf-haired Autumn Fairy character in many of my old paintings from the '90s, when I had practiced with watercolors and gouache for the first time.

Autumn has always been my favorite season, maybe because that's when my birthday is. I love the change of colors in trees, I love pumpkins and Halloween—and yes, as you may have suspected, I drink pumpkin spice coffee by the gallon.

Autumn is my special muse, too.

Fun fact: John Keats was born on Halloween, and he had a fondness for cats, which is why I included the black kitten who is fascinated by his feather quill pen. And I just have a special love for black cats, anyway.

The painting is really a cornucopia of mixed media. I used gouache, ink pens and ink brushes, colored pencils, chalk and even acrylics. I had adopted a large set of acrylic paints left behind at my workplace, and I'm still navigating how to use them. I do prefer the matte quality of gouache to the shinier look of acrylics, but a cool thing is that gouache and acrylics can be blended together. Gouache plays well with other media.

Experimenting is FUN, kids!

It's been quite a while since I finished a full color painting, and this one is a little bigger than my usual working size. Its large size also contributed to my putting it aside (continuously) to work on smaller illustrations.

Once I thought I had done all I could with it, I taped it around all the edges to a board, carried it outside and then photographed it in the sunlight. I picked the best of the photographs and then tinkered with it in Photoshop, brightening, sharpening, and getting rid of the usual cat hair that ends up everywhere. (Or sometimes it's my own hair I find, too.) 

After ten years in the making, it's FINALLY done!

Have you ever spent this long on a piece of artwork, or put something aside that you picked up years later? And who is your favorite poet and why is it John Keats?

Happy Equinox and season of mists!

Following From a Distance

 

An abridged version of this piece was originally published for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society charity book, Pets in Time. I had been asked by editor Ian Wheeler if some of my animal-themed Doctor Who sketches could be used, and also if I might want to write about recently losing my dog, Ashi. 

If you've ever lost a beloved animal companion, then you understand how hard it was to do. This is the original, longer version of the story I wrote, which I then edited down to submit to Pets in Time, which benefits the RSPCA and can be purchased here.

                      ____________________________________________

The hardest thing to come home to is the missing presence. How do you sum up a dog who has been your friend for thirteen years and is now longer there? While I still have my two wonderful cats, who are happy to see my daily return from the World Outside, it was Ashi who accompanied me beyond the door for small adventures together.

Walking together in early evenings, we had our own separate interests: he had a world of scents to explore, while I observed a neon-colored Arizona sunset, or an elusive elf owl on a tree branch, or a retreating coyote. Then there was the nighttime walks and astronomy, looking for lunar eclipses and comets, or the International Space Station making a pass over the desert sky. Later, with him beside me and in failing health, I was able to see Saturn and Jupiter align in the southwestern sky and Mars glow bright in the east. I miss having his company for these expeditions, even though he was more interested in the messages left by other canines, which he would leave replies to.

I named him Ashi, which is short for Ashitaka, a character from the Hayao Miyazaki film, Princess Mononoke. He was a shiba inu, a fox-like dog of Japanese descent. Despite looking like a plush toy when he was a puppy, he had started out as quite a handful. Testing his boundaries, he had been spunky and stubborn, often a bratty little gremlin who would challenge me at every turn. Shiba are one of the more primitive of dog breeds, known for their independence, intelligence...and limited attention span. I soon realized that I had my work cut out for me to keep my fuzzy little goblin in line. Consistency and perseverance were necessary. 


And so was puppy obedience school, where Ashi became the class clown. He would usually end up surging forward at the command of “Stay!” He would grab all the treats that awaited the more obedient dogs in the class, who looked on as the little thief ate all their rewards. It took him a little longer than the rest of the class, but Ashi finally learned how to be patient.

Eventually, he performed his commands only with the assumption that something was in it for him. With calculated cuteness, he would present his paw to any human in anticipation of a treat. For thirteen years, I would hear: “He looks like a little fox!” Or sometimes it was “mini-wolf,” or a “baby coyote.” Always a wild creature—which is also how I thought of him during my first two years with him.

On our very first walks together, he complained loudly when I first put a collar or leash on him; then he would carry the leash himself, in his mouth. In later years, I was guilty of allowing him sometimes to run ahead, so he that he could scout his territory. He could run unhampered this way, but was still attached to a long lead, which I held on to very tightly.

Shiba are dogs that can rarely be off leash. Ashi was a notorious escape artist, slipping out of collars with ease and squeezing out of open doors. Running after him in these cases was usually a comedy of errors. Sometimes I had to use reverse psychology in these situations and walk away from him in the other direction. In most cases, he would stop running when he realized that I was not going to play his game of chase, or “keep away.” He would then follow behind me at a distance. Whenever he pulled one of these stunts, I was fortunately always able to retrieve him one way or another. I usually was terrified that he would keep running and never come back.

After two years of puppy craziness and a lot of gnawed books in my apartment, Ashi seemed to mellow almost overnight, and grew into the handsome gentleman he would remain. He always waited for me to go through a door first. He rarely barked except at his nemeses, hummingbirds and bumblebees, which he viewed as small demons who hovered and mocked him, just out of his reach. For his own small size, his bark made him sound bigger and much more ferocious. On one of our walks, he once scared off a creepy man on a bicycle by swerving back and forth in front of me, in “goblin-dog” mode and the man fled.

I had taken him several times to our local Japanese festival, where he got to have sushi and rice balls and meet fellow shiba inu. However, he would become terrified at the sound of the taiko drumming and would pull me towards the exits. “We’re done. Time to go home now.” Like many dogs, he hated loud noises, and the traditional Japanese drumming must have sounded to him like thunder and fireworks, which always left him shaking in fear. I usually had to sit with him in my lap every New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July.

His favorite treats were peanut butter and cheese. I gave him entire spoonfuls of peanut butter to lick , or I'd spread it on a favorite biscuit for him. Anytime he heard me opening a package of cheese, he was by my side, expectant.

From the moment I had first brought him home, I made certain to show him that the cats had a higher rank in his new pack by feeding them first, while he was made to wait. In this way, he would learn to respect them. For all the years I had him, he deferred to the tougher of my two cats, Mifune (named after Toshiro). With his selective hearing and un-canine love of catnip, Ashi was rather cat-like himself. His respect for the cats, however, did not prevent him from stealing their toys for himself. No fuzzy green felt mouse was safe from his jaws.

Later, all three of them would commandeer my bed for naps when I was not using it, and sometimes when I was.

When he still was able to, Ashi liked to sleep in the bed with me, usually at the foot of it, his head on my legs. When it was colder, he stretched out alongside of me, usually with both the cats as well. I remember being very sick one year, shivering, and waking up in a sweat when my fever broke to discover that Ashi was huddled up against me.

Being a shiba inu, he was still equal parts stubborn and elegant, needy and aloof. Sometimes he was stoic as a samurai, other times an absolute drama queen. To everyone else, he was a handsome charmer. At home, Ashi could be found under my desk or under my drawing table, usually at my feet as I worked. When he needed to go outside for a walk, he would sit at the door and make a low, deep noise that sounded like “Hmm.” To get my attention, he would also activate the Shiba Stare, which is a sophisticated and effective mind control technique.

When I was full of doubt or insecurity, I had only to stroke his fur or look at his grin to know it would be all right.

 
        Except, when it wasn't.

It was when he stumbled for the first time going up the stairs after a walk outside, that I realized something was wrong. What had started in such a subtle way with a lame back leg, progressed into a loss of muscle control in his hind quarters, an inability to even wag his tail. His tail had started to sag, no longer curling up over his back in typical shiba-fashion anymore, instead hanging loose and limp. In a short time, he succumbed to so much pain and immobility, that I had to carry him up and down the stairs of my apartment building so that he would be able to relieve himself. And even that became an excruciating effort for him because he could barely walk.

He had been losing weight, despite always having a good appetite. His back leg had begun to drag, sometimes causing his paw to scrape on the ground and bleed. I cleaned the injuries, bought him special paw protectors.

 Despite many veterinary trips and an ever-increasing amount of medicine, he was not getting any better as the end of the year progressed. After an examination, the veterinarian wondered if he there was the possibility of an undiscovered tumor somewhere; but we never did find out.

Eventually, he could no longer stand, and he had lost control over his bladder. Shiba are very fastidious and clean, and I think he was deeply humiliated by this.

After what was supposed to have been a routine veterinary exam one weekend, I had come back to retrieve him after a few hours, and realized things were not well. Right away I recognized the voice of the dog who was howling and shrieking nonstop in the back room. Everyone looked at me with concern and I was told he needed to be given even stronger pain medicine, as well as sedatives. When I brought him home, I tried to make him as comfortable as best that I could, but he began to yelp in pain again. I texted the veterinarian, who instructed me to increase his medicine. This did not help at all. I put my pillow and blanket on the floor beside his dog bed so I could sleep beside him and to be close. At one point, Mifune came over to him and rubbed her head against him and purred; this calmed him down for a short time and it was the only time he fell asleep that whole weekend. I thanked Mifune for that brief comfort for both of us. I too was able to get some brief sleep.

When he awoke in terrible pain again, crying, I knew that he was suffering and that I had to make an awful decision. It might have been the hardest thing I would ever do.

I texted my veterinarian. Perhaps it was that time.

I drove back to the vet before dawn broke. He was wrapped in one of my bathroom towels as I carried him inside.

I stayed with him until the end, and afterwards.

His collar and harness are still hanging from the doorknob of my apartment as I write. Before realization sets in, I still catch myself saying, “Be a good boy,” before I close the door to go off to work.

There is the empty place at my side now when I take solitary walks; I still imagine him running ahead of me. There is no more ball presented to me as a homecoming gift. There is the empty place under my desk, too, and under the drawing table. There is the end of the bed where he used to curl up or wrestle with a pillow.

I finally accepted that it was all right if I slipped up, if I still told him to “be good” as I left for the day. When he had run away from me in the past and I had walked in the opposite direction, he had always ended up following me home. I hope that he will continue to follow along from wherever he is now, however far away it may be. 

I won’t need to turn around to know that he still will be there, following from a distance.

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I finally made a little bonsai memorial for Ashi. It's not a real bonsai, and it's a toy shiba, but he looks quite happy, nevertheless. He was recently joined by his feline sister, GoGo, whom I dearly miss. 

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