This week’s broad is a relative newcomer to Breaking Bad – Lydia Rodarte-Quayle.  (If you are behind on your BB, I’d suggest skipping my blurb, and go straight to the drawing, and then going straight to your video device of choice, and find a way to watch the new season. It’s a doozy.).

OK, anyone who’s still reading – you caught up with season 5? Good, let’s chat.  Lydia’s a complex character – she presents as an alternately strong and vulnerable woman.  She’s stared down & talked her way out of death threats from both Walt and Mike, two guys who aren’t afraid to kill to protect what they’ve created.  Lydia also isn’t afraid to use her connections (and Madrigal’s) to keep herself out of trouble, and in business.  She strikes me as an extremely cunning person, who is very good at manipulating those around her to get what she wants.  She’s a tightly wound type-A who’s gotten herself into business with some very unpredictable characters.  As viewers, I still feel like we don’t know a whole about Lydia for sure yet – how much of her personality is a front, and how  much is really her?  Why does she choose to take so many risks, like orchestrating meth distribution, when she’s clearly a well compensated executive at Madrigal?  At first, I thought she might have been Gus Fring’s oft mentioned, but never seen wife – is it still possible?  We have yet to see how Los Pollos and Gus were hooked up to Madrigal – maybe we’ll get a flashback this season?

A final interesting thing about Lydia; the actress that portrays her, Laura Fraser, is Scottish.  According to Breaking Bad’s crew, she naturally has a fairly heavy Scottish accent.  Amazingly, as Lydia on screen, you never hear even a trace of a non-English accent.  How cool is that??

When I think of Lydia, I always think back to the first time we met her, in the diner with Mike, and how nervous she appeared. Despite her nerves, she came off as a forceful, strong-willed woman who knew what needed to be done.  And a diner-hating Stevia lover.

Also, in case you forgot (but how could you!), MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comic Expo) will be happening on Saturday, September 29th in Cambridge, MA.  I’ll be there tabling with my best bud Steve Seck (secktacular.com), and I’ll have plenty of Wall Street Cats and Super Lobotomies for all!!

Wow – after many long weeks of work, and a few nearly sleepless nights, I present to you dudes the cover to Super Lobotomy!!  The very first printing of the book will be available this weekend at Small Press Expo, in Bethesda, MD – come on down and buy it, and I might just sign it for you ( I definitely will)!!!  I’ll be @ table W-8 (on the wall, woo!!) along with Steve Seck (secktacular.com) and Margot Dabaie (margoyle.net). I’ll be posting pictures & tidbits all weekend on Facebook (facebook.com/TheLindo) and Twitter (twitter.com/Ms_The_Lindo) – so watch out for like, 40 pictures of the legendary SPX chocolate fountain!

Super Lobotomy will be available in the Lindo.com store early next week, so if you can’t make it out to SPX, you can still have your very own copy!  I assure you, it is pretty darn awesome, and well worth shipping and handling!

As a humble apology, please accept this crude picture of Heisenberg wearing a wig as a poor, but heartfelt substitute.

…because, I mean, why not?  If you absolutely need to know what happens to this wig, come pick up SuperLobotomy @ SPX , MICE, or Detroit FanFare this fall.  If none of these shows are near you, you can always move closer, right? (Worth it!).  Or, just order the book *here* – I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life…

So this weeks Breaking Broad is Sklyer White – as a character, I think Skyler gets an undeserved amount of criticism and bashing from a lot of the show’s fans.  It seems like it’s very easy for a lot of viewers, many of which I presume to be men, to empathise with Walter – a man who is stricken suddenly with an incurable disease, and fights back in his own morally questionable way.   Despite his ego, he always claims he does what he does strictly for the support and betterment of his family after he eventually dies.  Skyler, though, is often seen as the unsupportive, shrewish wife who tries to undermine her proud, hardworking husband at every turn.

To understand Sklyer, it’s important to see the events of Breaking Bad through her eyes: If someone in your life had just revealed to you they had Stage III lung cancer, and started acting more aggressive and disappearing mysteriously, you’d be concerned.  If you felt that this person was also keeping some big secret from you, you’d probably want to find out what it was.  And if you found out that this same person was doing something that could endanger your whole family, you’d want to keep your children, or whoever, as far away from him or her as possible too.  Sklyer is reacting (sometimes very emotionally) to a terrible and extraordinary set of circumstances, one that is completely out of her control.  In many ways, she lives parallel to Walt  - to gain back some control in her life, she acts, yet everything she does, in her mind, is to protect her family.

Also, I’d like to mention that Anna Gunn does a great job portraying a woman who’s life has been turned upside down like Sklyer’s has.  It’s no small achievement to play a role as complex, and sometimes unlikeable, as Sklyer, who is as imperfect and human as anyone else on the show. But enough with my amateur analysis (the AV Club makes it look so easy!)!  Here’s Sklyer, in her kimono:

See you guys tomorrow!

If I were a funnier person, I’d insert some “It sure is gonna be a Labor Day amiright?” kind of joke in here for you, but instead, I’ll ply your goodwill with yet another new SuperLobotomy panel:

Surprise!!! Brain Guy is surprised too!! Yay!!!

Anyway, the show is populated by an extremely talented cast – undoubtedly, Bryan Cranston & Aaron Paul steal the show as the “odd couple meets meth lab” duo – but there’s characters (and the actresses that portray them) who don’t seem to get quite as much attention.  I’m talking about the ladies of Breaking Bad!

Inspired by my “Breaking Buddies” portrait last week, I’ve created a new feature, called “Breaking Broads”. In the coming weeks, I’m going to draw a portrait of each female character that appears on Breaking Bad, starting this week with Marie Schrader:

So, I love Marie – at the begining of the series she just seems nosy, meddling, and obnoxious, but as we delve deeper into the story, you get to know the woman behind all that purple.  Like all the characters on Breaking Bad, Marie is flawed – she’s a judgmental kleptomaniac who can be a bit of a control freak.  As we get to know her, though, she reveals herself to be a truly caring and concerned person who loves, and would do anything for her family – especially her husband Hank.

Incidentally, Marie is also an X-ray tech, which often makes me see her as the TV version of my mother (you know, on top of all the telling people how to live kinda stuff – Marie would make an excellent Italian mother!)  I guess that kind of explains why I feel very at home when Marie is on the screen.  So, in the spirit of her husband Hank,  let’s all toast Marie, and Betsy Brandt, the actress who portrays her:  “Jesus Christ, Marie!”

So, the other cool project I’ve been working on is my follow-up to “Lobotomy”, the incredibly originally titled “Super Lobotomy”!  I haven’t posted a lot of images, but since it’s debuting in less than a month @ SPX, I think it’s time to start giving you guys a taste!

Here is a panel in progress, of Brain Guy doing his best to be helpful.  Sadly for him, he’s failing miserably at it, but lucky for us, we get to laugh about it in the comforting glow of our computers!

And yes, that is the “Man in the Moon” and Sasquatch as city sanitation workers.