Malcy Duff’s I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

Introduction

"The Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed" was a comic created for a lecture I delivered at the Burren College of Art on Wednesday, October 26th, 2022. The title of the lecture, "I Don't Know What I'm Doing," gave an overview of my practice as a cartoonist, with the strip leading into different elements of my cartooning, including pacing, experimentation, performance and the condensed line. I usually say very little about what my comics mean, and what's happening in them, to leave the reader room to interpret their own meaning from what they find on the page. This strip is unique in that sense, as I used it as a basis to share my process, describing in detail what I was doing and thinking while drawing each page. I wanted to break the mystery of making and doing, dissecting each page to release the glimmering guts on the table.

The comic was improvised, drawn in ink with no storyboarding or penciling, letting the pens take me where they wanted to go, and sometimes where I didn't want to go. I felt like I was traveling with the Uncertain Man on his Trusty Steed, and the bumpy ride is one of my favorite journeys I have made in comics, to this day.

One of the many reasons I make comics is to encourage others to make comics, to say ‘you can do this too.’ I present the strip and a transcript of the lecture here in the hope that by sharing this with you, your pens also might take you on a bumpy ride.

Hold on tight. It’ll be worth it.

-Malcy Duff, Edinburgh, December 2023

* * *

I Don't Know What I'm Doing

(I Do Know What I'm Doing)

Good morning. My name is Malcy Duff and I don’t know what I’m doing. You will notice that I am reading from this sheet of paper, and that is because I don’t know what I’m doing. I find myself reading a lot when I don’t know what I’m doing, I find that can help.

(I pick up a recipe book)

(I read aloud the title of the recipe book in case it’s not clear to see)

It’s summer?

It’s summer. Again!

The custard pie can be traced back to Ancient Romans and their understanding of the properties of binding eggs. Over time the custard pie (the word custard coming from ‘crustade,’ a tart with a crust) became popular, initially custard being the only filling of a pie. In Britain, any pies thrown into the face as a comedic device is known as a custard pie, and has been used by clowns and as a practical joke in comedy. The custard pie may also be used for showing disapproval of a public figure by pieing them. Possibly the definitive pie fight on film was Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s The Battle of the Century from 1927, where they used 3,000 pies in the fight sequence.

There hasn’t been a better time in history to make a good old fashioned custard pie. Now is the time!

You will need…

(I reach down and pull out from my bag a can of shaving foam and a metal pie container)

(I pick up an un-recipe book, and blank pages fall out)

The pages are blank.

(throughout the lecture I go back and forth between preparing a custard pie from the recipe book and preparing an un-custard pie from the un-recipe book; when I read from the recipe book, I spray shaving foam into a pie container, but when I read from the un-recipe book, I spray shaving foam onto my arms, head, shoes… anywhere that is not correct to make a pie)

For this lecture entitled "I Don’t Know What I’m Doing," I drew a comic strip. The comic strip is called "The Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed." I find myself wondering often that when I make work, I don’t know what I’m doing. It is maybe afterwards that I look at the work, or perhaps someone else reads it and enlightens me, that I link what I do to lived experiences, and things that I know. Maybe I do know what I’m doing. In this sense I am going to give a subtitle to this lecture. The subtitle is "I Do Know What I’m Doing."

It is always important to me in my work that I leave a great deal of room for individual interpretation. I strongly believe that the comix I make go through three main processes. The first is when the idea pops in my head, perhaps the most exciting part. The second is then to translate this idea and structure it into a comic narrative, perhaps the most tricky. The third is the reader’s interpretation of the work… new ideas coming from the initial idea, the reader becoming creator. This is perhaps the most important.

With all of that said, for this lecture I wanted to flip that slightly. As I really don’t know what I’m doing, I thought it would be useful to go through each page of a comic book I have made, thinking about the approach I have taken, what I was thinking when I was making the strip, and possible interpretations of my own of the work.

To do this I worked slightly differently to how I would normally. Usually with my comix I will sketch out ideas in a sketchpad, develop those ideas with more drawing, then begin to storyboard out those ideas into the scaffolding of the comic. I will then pencil out the pages, and then ink them to complete the comic.

For this comic strip I did no planning, no pencils, no storyboards… I drew the comic page to page, making it up as I went along, not knowing what I was doing. The only reference point was this drawing from my sketchbook… a drawing I made on 15th July 2022.

(I hold up the sketchbook drawing of The Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed.)

The Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed

Page One
The Uncertain Man rides his Trusty Steed along rocks on the side of a path. They are both faced in the direction of a path that leads past a hill on one side to more rocks and hills ahead. Where is this place? Who are these characters? What is the weather like? What are these characters thinking? The panel is suggested by a thick line at the top of the page, and another three quarters down. These lines are at angles which might suggest movement - following these lines will create a journey for the reader, traveling across the page, reflecting the characters’ journey. The fact that there isn’t panel lines on either side, the landscape running off the page, also suggests something is not finished and is to be continued.

Have you ever parked a car in a field? How did that feel? Was it like riding a trusty steed across the tops of rocks that lay on the side of a path?

This is where the Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed seem to belong - off to the side of a path, on a journey unknown.

Page Two
In the top panel the Uncertain Man strokes his Trusty Steed - the panel lines direct us towards the steed, the Steed being the focus of this panel. The Uncertain Man begins to speak: “My trusty steed,” he says in panel one. He continues in panel two: “I don’t know what I’m doing.” We now see the Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed closer up, while the path and the side of it spreads back into the distance.

The characters may have travelled for a long time to get to this place - or they could have been set down from a hot air balloon passing by. The panel line frames the past, but only part of it. Is the Uncertain Man telling the truth - does he really not know what he’s doing? And how does he feel about this? Does it upset him, does it make him happy, does he care? By voicing it and not just thinking it, there is a suggestion that he wants someone to know, someone to listen, he wants to be heard. The Trusty Steed faces forward.

Page Three
This page is split into five panels. It suggests that the Uncertain Man is riding his Trusty Steed along the side of the path following the trail from the previous pages. The page suggests movement of the journey in two ways. Each panel runs off the page - the fourth panel wall is missing, meaning the journey is unfinished, continuing somewhere. The hills move from right to left - suggesting the characters are passing them on their trip. Unless, that is, the hills are on wheels, and going on their own journey. The Uncertain Man kicks his legs - why does he do this? Is he bored? Does he know what he is doing, like having a doctor hit your knee with a hammer - do the legs know what they’re doing? The cartoonist may be able to answer this. While drawing this I meant to draw the legs swinging in panel two and panel four to create a smooth movement, as if the uncertain man was swinging his legs like a daydream. I mistakenly drew them still in panel four, copying the panel immediately above and not from two above. The movement is now different from what I had intended. Maybe I like it more as it is. I now reflect on these panels in a way I may not have done had I got it ‘right.’ Now I get to wonder, like the doctor holding the hammer.

(making the custard pie)

Page Four
The Trusty Steed. Who is really leading this journey? Is it the Uncertain Man / is it the Trusty Steed? On this page we are taken on a journey back and forth in panels of different shapes and sizes. We see the Trusty Steed’s foot (paw) and their legs (arms), close in on a rock - and walking the panel line itself. The panel line becomes the landscape that the steed traverses - it is a hill, a rock, a path? The panels slice out an area of the landscape for the reader to consider - sectioning off part of the whole. What is missing? And what does the reader fill in with their imaginations?

The panel lines led me in my drawing here - when I began drawing I visualized the shapes of the panels to take the reader across the page.

Where does the reader travel to on the page and from the page?

(making the un-custard pie)

Page Five
Where are we going I wonder? We are now told by the Uncertain Man: “I don’t know where I’m going.” As I re-read this comic I am less certain of where I am going now than I was when I drew it. I am lost. Lost inside a comic, in circles of square panels. Can we truly make work that takes us on a journey into the unknown? When I drew this comic I improvised each page, and in that sense I didn’t know where I was going. But right before I put pen to page I made some decisions. Yes, this is where I’m going. I am going over there. Or over there. But where did I go? Did I go there? Or there? I don’t know if I ever did. And now I find myself here, which is neither there or there.

I also ask you can we truly improvise with materials that we know so well. I draw every day, and I know what a pen is, I know what it does. I know what a comic is, or at least, what it can be… I know thought bubbles, speech bubbles - at least, I think I know them…

I CAN see something ahead… I wonder about the small panel on the top left - what does it contain? The larger panel takes our eye in different directions on the page reflecting a sense of not knowing where we are going. It is a compass that I will continue to follow, to somewhere, a broken working implement.

Pages Six & Seven
These pages are linked in the way they are read - really they are a double-page spread and belong together. This came about though from drawing page six without knowing what page seven would be.

Would page seven exist without page six?

Page six leads us into page seven. When drawing the Uncertain Man’s head on page six I realized I had drawn it too big - which lead me to draw the body in a separate panel, separating them, allowing for a close-up in the above panel. If you look at the shoulder lines, they are thicker in the top panel than in the panel below. This is then repeated in a sense on page seven, the head and shoulders become the path between the rock. A smaller image of the Uncertain Man, further along his journey from page six, exaggerates the body shape. The only legs we see is of the Trusty Steed. These pages could suggest the steed is part of the Uncertain Man and the Uncertain Man is part of the Trusty Steed. Like the pages being linked, the characters appear linked too. It could also suggest that it is the Steed who is leading this journey, being the Steed’s legs that are taking the combined character onward. That could also be questioned as it is the Uncertain Man’s head, and perhaps mind, that is illustrated and not the Steed’s. However, I would definitely consider legs containing a mind. The legs on page six take the reader over to page seven - the reader is now riding the Trusty Steed. There is a feeling of pausing, and stillness on page seven. The Uncertain Steed stands looking on, possibly in awe of what is ahead, or reflecting on where they have come to. The top panel with its closed wall instills this further.

Page Eight
Two larger panels where we get to see inside the Uncertain Man’s head. But even as we see these clear images, the Uncertain Man asks a question, unsure of his own vision. As he projects them outward into the world, they change.

From this point on in the comic I began to consider all the pages as double-page spreads. I’m not sure at what point I began to think about the next page but I was thinking about it during the making of page eight for sure.

I had been playing a lot of Tiger Woods golf while making this comic, and I especially like the crowd bots. At this point of computer game technology, the individual crowd member acted the same as the crowd member next to them - the simulations are repeated so every crowd member behaves exactly the same as the other. The reaction that I particularly enjoyed was the one where the crowd member would throw their hands above their heads to celebrate. I found it disturbing, it kinda gave me the creeps. The Uncertain Man asks another question: “Not every stone is the same like a crowd member in a computer golf game…”

“…is it?”

Even when we repeat the same image over and over again it is never exactly the same, is it?

Page Nine
Maybe this page is where the Uncertain Man gets some answers?

Page Ten
The panel line is again leading the reader on this journey – with the help from a large finger pointing the way.

The swoosh of the Trusty Steed becomes a cloud which floats above the stones that the Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed ride upon.

This page was again conceived with the next in mind. This happened at some point along the way. The stones lead off this page and onto the next page.

(making the un-custard pie)

Page Eleven
Mistakes on this page created different perspectives that I didn’t plan. Drawing freehand for most of the pages, I wasn’t measuring lines as I went along - if you look at the building (possibly a castle), you can see it is on a slope. This was a complete mistake. This then affects the direction the water is flowing in, what looks like a moat. The water flows down the hill from right to left. I like this… it gives a disorientating feeling… the water flows in the opposite direction to the direction the reader has been reading the comic. The reader may move the page so it lines up, or move their head while looking at it… in this sense the image then connects with the reader through the reader participating in the movement of the page. Hopefully the wonkiness moves the reader’s stomach a little.

This mistake proved to be something I ended up liking - and yet I was frustrated by the other mistake on the page. If we are considering these pages as a spread, the cloud should probably link up as well, and it doesn’t. It is cut off completely, it doesn’t exist on page eleven. I find this slightly disturbing - what does it mean to now have this cloud cut in half? I imagine looking at the sky and seeing half clouds with flat edges… where have these halves gone? And the cloud is not what disturbs me, but my reaction to it. Can I accept this cloud? Maybe it never had another half.

I picture a party for the mistake. A celebration for the failure. A room full of people raising their drinking apparatus, small holes in the bottom of their glasses, allowing the drink to tickle their wrists as they lift the container and say “Well done for getting it wrong everyone!” The drink touches the elbow, and then the conversation begins. How did that feel!?!?

The panels on page 11 are curious to me. I am asking the question of what the panel is - what part of the comic is the panel? Does it participate or is it an onlooker, a character or just a line to make a character exist? That’s not nothing. These panels might not be panels, they may be frames in the landscape, sticking out of the mountain like goalposts - sticking out of the castle like a screen. And what is the structure?

The rock doesn’t look like rock anymore…

Page Twelve
This page is also made up from mistakes, but this time the mistakes have come from the character himself. “Like the comic strip, do we really know where the ball will land when we hit it? YES. I know how this will end. I will ride across a moat and have a custard pie thrown in my face.” He continues in the next panel, whispering: “Wait!” “I should have said this before.” In the final panel we hear the water speak: “Too late.” The Uncertain Man has already walked a good way across the drawbridge above a moat when he utters his words, realizing after that he should have said it before he got onto the drawbridge. When he realizes this, he says out loud, (but under his breath,) that he should have said this before. The water underneath him says what the reader is thinking… now all this is done, and drawn in ink, and been witnessed by the reader - it is too late. The responsibility for this mistake is completely down to the Uncertain Man and not the cartoonist. This is a turning point in the strip, where the character has overtaken the cartoonist. He has gone past the story, beyond the narrative, and is now in a liminal place between tale and telling. The character mentioned the comic strip… is he aware that he is a comic book character? The uncertain man now seems very certain, which also suggests that the comic is now broken. His character no longer exists. He is the Certain Man now. He knows what will happen. Is the Uncertain Man the cartoonist?

Page Thirteen
If we are to believe that the Uncertain Man is now the cartoonist, the creator of his own strip, we can also consider a shift in tone on this page regarding pace. The page is split into three sections, each one with a sequence relating to what the Uncertain Man told us on the previous page. In the first sequence, the Uncertain Man and his Trusty Steed watch a door open - the door of the castle. In the second, the frame of a door is repeated three times across the drawbridge with what appears to be a custard pie coming towards the reader. Beyond these panels we see a pie thrown from a panel line, landing in front of the Trusty Steed. In the final sequence on the page, the hair of the Trusty Steed extends across the page, moving the reader along from the previous sections of drawbridge. Completing the third panel are legs, possibly belonging to the Uncertain Man, that move towards the pie upturned on the ground. This page suggests an impatient cartoonist to me. There is more movement and action on this page than most of the other pages in the comic. Is the cartoonist keen to finish their day of drawing and have their tea? The pace, though, may be justified in the speed of the pie. A custard pie when thrown will fly through the air quite quickly, and so the page could reflect that speed. We now question the authorship of the comic once again. In the previous page, the Uncertain Man became the Certain Man when he stated the comic finishing with a custard pie thrown in his face. This page contradicts that, and now asks who really knows what is going on?

​
Page Fourteen
On the final page of the comic, the Uncertain Man scratches his head, as he looks down at the custard pie on the ground in front of him. How is the Uncertain Man feeling?

Uncertain.

The final page could be seen as a very disappointing ending, and in some ways it is. The Uncertain Man expected the custard pie to be thrown in his face, and yet it now lies on the ground, disconnected from its possible destination. The Uncertain Man had no destination, and perhaps has no destiny. The whole journey had led to this point for him and his Trusty Steed, and now the journey is over, finished by the cartoonist (as we can see by his signature at the bottom right of the page), and the Uncertain Man is left, stuck, uncertain forever.

I feel sorry for the Uncertain Man. It seemed for a while that he was writing his own story and it turns out that it was written by someone else. I am writing this lecture but it is only a lecture. I could write anything. Let’s see what happens when I write…

“At the end of this lecture, Conor McGrady will throw a custard pie into Malcy Duff’s face.”

Signed,
The Uncertain Man

(the finished custard pie is thrown in Malcy Duff’s face)

Maybe I do know what I’m doing!

* * *

Malcy Duff would like to thank Conor McGrady, the students and staff at the Burren College of Art, Eric Reynolds and William S. Wilson.

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