Something New!

Wait for it

Comic panel preview of an Orca's seletal system and it's body hanging mid-motion in a warehouse
| rozihath
Comic panel preview of an Orca's seletal system and it's body hanging mid-motion in a warehouse

So, it’s somehow mid-August already. Yet again, time flies.

I keep coming back in my mind to that quote in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Moving forward I need to find a better split. Work smarter, not harder.

But while I figure that out, I still have plenty to update you on!

Legacy

Remember that comic I wrote and was inking about the Natural History Museum London and whale oil earlier this year? It’s done! Titled Legacy, it’s been finished since March and is now sitting quietly waiting for publication. I’m hoping to bring it out in late 2024/early 2025 as part of a collection.

But while I’m working away on the next story for the collection, here are some sneak peeks!

Having finished this one up a few months ago it’s so exciting to share some previews with you. I can’t wait to bring Legacy out into the world. As well as being about the Cetacea Research Collection in London, it’s also about grief. It includes a bonus mini-comic Appendix I about how this collection links to my experiences. AND some incredibly nerdy and interesting content about how an institution like the NHM prepares whale, dolphin or porpoise specimens for research and display

Again, I can’t wait for you all to see it.

The effect of a very busy existence

So along with regular NHM research visits, writing, drawing and having a day job – alongside trying to spend time with my love, my family, friends, a baseball team and having a home to try and keep tidy – comes the slightly annoying after-effect of feeling run-down. And what happened in April? I got ill. Sofa-bound, violent coughing kind of ill. Something was going round at that time, but my shitty asthmatic lungs didn’t do me any favours and I was signed-off work and x-rayed to assess how bad it all was (spoiler: it wasn’t great).

So my imaginary deadline of launching a Kickstarter by the end of summer had to get canned.

On the plus side, having longer to think about comic #3 has been an unexpected joy. It’s given me time to really look at what I want to talk about.

The initial topic is broad: sound and communication. If you know anything about whale/dolphin/porpoise vocalisations you’ll know they can produce a range of sounds. But let me tell you – there’s SO much more to it than that. Varying Hertz levels, underwater sound channels, the changing shape of a beluga’s melon (supposedly named after the French hat rather than the fruit) when making certain sounds. It’s wild.

Side note: Check out Tom Mustill’s How to Be a Whale poetic sound journey if you’re interested in hearing the variety of sounds certain species produce.

So far my research and notes total 30 A4 pages. But I’m getting there, and with new technology and theories in abundance, it’s an exciting time to be working on this topic. So, watch this space!

It’s finally happened

That’s right my friends. I’ve finally seen a whale in the wild 🐋

I was lucky enough to be in Boston, Massachusetts with family last month, and of course I took the opportunity to go on a 4-hour whale watching adventure. And when we saw nothing the first time, you bet I went back out again two days later.

And there they were, beautiful female humpback whales near Stellwagen Bank on the humpback whale migration path. I just about managed to fumble this recording through stunned silence and sheer awe.

I also saw a fin whale in the distance, and around 50 Atlantic white-sided dolphins including calves.

It’s something I’ll never forget.

And that’s it for now!

…excuse me while I nose-dive back into my not-at-all overwhelming pages of notes about whale vocalisations. Writing is always the most stressful part. Drawing is the fun bit. Wish me luck!

Until next time.

Rozi x

Hello 2024

| rozihath

I love a New Year. It’s the list-maker in me; looking through what I’ve done in the last year, having a little dance, and looking forward to the new year and what’s to come. Some years are more difficult than others, for sure, but I genuinely find a new year so refreshing and exciting it’s hard to focus on anything else.

2023 was an incredibly busy year. So much so it makes my head spin – there was a LOT of behind-the-scenes progress on my overall whale project, including webinars, meetings and in-person visits to the Natural History Museum’s cetacea research collection. I also wrote and drew Sermersuaq, my insanely long-but-short comic about the Greenland Ice Sheet. Sam, Paddy and I built a whole new Good Comics website. I attended two weddings, one of which was my own. I had one honeymoon and one familymoon. One complete season as a New Forest baseball player. 33 books read. I shed tears, I laughed a lot, and I have a lot to be thankful for.

Sketchbook page showing a variety of specimens from the NHM Cetacea collection
Photo of a mind-map on the wall with post-it notes and lines plotting out a comic

There were a few bits I didn’t get around to sharing on here in the last few months of last year, one of which was my linoprint whale oil mini zine!

Any true comic creator will know this scenario well: if you have a show coming up it’s almost essential to have a great idea to make something last-minute. In October I attended Winchester Comics and Zine Fair with Sam on behalf of Good Comics. It wasn’t too much of a rush in the end, and I have no regrets about making this mini-comic about my current whale oil research.

There are three left in my store if you’re interested in getting your hands on one. Every little bit helps support my research!

And that brings me to 2024. What’s next?

Well, I’ve been working on inking up a comic, and it’s nearly through its various rounds of editing for scientific accuracy and readability. This comic is directly related to the Natural History Museum and whale oil, and I may be biased, but I think it’s going to be incredibly cool.

Here are some sneak peeks at the inks so far:

Crop of comic panel showing buried whale bones

So finishing this comic is my first goal.

Then, I’m working on the idea of self-publishing it together with the now out-of-print Karasu and one other story as a kind of whale collection. Which is a hella cool idea, so hopefully I can pull it off!

Between this, work and life, I’m still reading a lot and working on having some more mini-adventures near where I live. I took a day off last week, making an early visit to Old Harry Rocks, along Dorset’s Jurrasic Coast. Then I headed over to Peveril Point in Swanage for some land-based whale watching. I didn’t spot any dolphins, seals or harbour porpoises sadly, but my dog and I had a great time*.

*me definitely, the dog might have been a bit tired.

That’s it for now. More coming soon!

Rozi x

Sermersuaq

| rozihath

It’s nearly Spring, friends.

Though, if you live in the UK it probably doesn’t feel like that. I could say that I finished a new comic to coincide with the cold and recently snowy conditions outside, but honestly, I’m not that organised.

This new short comic, Sermersuaq, is about the Greenland Ice Sheet – titled with its Greenlandic name.

I picked up a book at the beginning of January called The Ice at the End of the World by Jon Gertner, which seemed at the time like a good winter read. What I didn’t expect was to be totally absorbed by the mystery and isolation of Greenland, and the stories that came from Americans and Europeans ‘discovering’ and crossing the ice.

One thing that really stood out is those human stories, and in taking a break from whale research I thought I’d turn this into a short comic. Well, short in story length. Long in depth. You’ll see what I mean further down…

But similar to creating whale comics about scientific research, I was again condensing large amounts of information and research into a short, succinct, accessible format. All to tell a love story (aww).

I also chose to use the Greenlandic language terms for both the ice sheet (Sermersuaq) and Greenland itself (Kalaallit Nunaat). You can learn more about the Greenlandic language here.

I had the idea of how to present this comic fairly early on, and once I’d finished it digitally I decided to get it giclee printed as one long piece to read. Nearly 1.5 meters long, to be specific. And it turned out better than I’d hoped! There is a limited run of three copies available to buy online if you’re interested in owning an obscenely long comic folded down into an A4-sized concertina.

For a screen-friendly version, you can check it out below.

Read the hi-res comic in full here

Get a physical copy – limited run

I really enjoyed working on something like this with a totally different final format. And something so largely abstract with paint washes. It felt good!

It’s been an interesting foray into glaciology and history, but it’s time to go back to whales. Following the release of Karasu I’ve had some really interesting conversations with some really interesting people – and I’ll have more to share on that shortly.

Besides, I might also take some time off because I’m getting married soon! And co-founded a new baseball team, with our first season kicking off shortly.

Until next time!

x

Autumn light

| rozihath

Hi all,

We’re already halfway through October, three-quarters of the way through the year, and I’m about two-thirds of the way through my second coffee of the day. How poetic!

After the madness of the school summer holidays, I’ve spent the last couple of months getting my priorities in order – trying to focus on looking after myself and my goals, whilst juggling work, kids’ school, my relationship and not being an inactive blobfish. I’m in a pretty good place right now, which is a bonus considering the days are closing in and I got rained on yesterday. So here’s a little recap of what I’ve been up to.

Zanna submission

Back in early September, I spotted a call for submissions from a magazine/art collective called Zanna. I first heard of them from an alumni talk by Taya Martin (where I also presented) back in March this year. And I’ve been following them on Instagram ever since!

Zanna has some great opportunities out there, and its ethos is all about breaking down barriers to art and promoting affordability and fun initiatives. This is absolutely necessary, and I am a big supporter!

Back to the submission: as some of you may know, I’ve always been a huge fan of short comics – a lot of my first work was published in places like Dirty Rotten Comics anthologies and the Good Comics Dead Singers Society zines. So this seemed like a fun opportunity to mix things up a bit and work to a new theme/brief: Candyland. I submitted my 2-page comic just in time for the deadline, and I’m thrilled to have been accepted into Issue 10!

It’ll be on sale soon, so keep your eyes peeled and follow Zanna on Instagram for all the latest.

Whales, whales, whales

As you may have seen in my last blog, I’m currently working pretty intensely on a new comic. It’ll be far longer and in-depth than anything I’ve published to date, and all I’m willing to tell you about for now is that it’s about whales. The big, beautiful mammals that are so admired and yet so alien to our everyday life.

Here are a few more sketchbook pages for now, but rest assured, things are brewing in my ol’ headbox. Big things cometh soon.

A mural for our community garden

Finally, full-admittance that I’m now officially a crazy dog lady. Or, I care about our community garden. Or both!

Earlier this year it was proposed that our local nature-filled community garden should be concreted over, along with adjacent paths and a public car park to make way for more unaffordable flats. Thanks, capitalism. I use the garden a lot with my fur-child Malibu, so as well as petitioning against the proposed development, I decided to make a mural to spruce up the garden and show what it means to me and my dog.

The chipboard I used for the project was free from a neighbour, so all I needed was the primer, paint and waterproof varnish to protect it against the elements. It was pretty new for me to work on a larger scale and with acrylic, but I had a lot of fun doing it. It’s been out in the garden for a couple of months now, and we’re waiting to hear the outcome of our neighbourhood-wide opposition to the building work. Check it out:

And that’s it for now! As always, be sure to check out what we’re up to over at Good Comics and keep my pens and coffee fund well-stocked by visiting my store.

Stay warm and cosy, folks. Until next time.

x

Recent soul-warming books to recommend:

Autumn Light by Pico Iyer
The Day the Whale Came by Lynne Cox
Home Body by Rupi Kaur
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
(please buy books from your local bookshop, hire them from your library, or failing that, Hive is great)

Let us inspire you

| rozihath

Hi everyone,

It’s been a little while since I last updated you all, and I have lots to discuss! It’s already feeling very autumnal out there, so if the view out of your window is anything like mine currently is (grey, rainy, a general feeling of blergh), then settle down with your hot beverage of choice whilst I catch you up on what I’ve been up to.

First up, as I briefly mentioned last month, I’ve been working with AccessArt on their new post-Covid resources for school-age children, DrawAble.

The purpose of DrawAble, from AccessArt themselves, is:

…a series of resources to help schools deliver an inspiring and appropriate curriculum for pupils aged 6 to 13 working at home or school. AccessArt DrawAble connects drawing, narrative and visual literacy to provide pupils with a creative bridge to help them navigate from lockdown towards the new normal.

AccessArt DrawAble – see the full website here.

It’s been such a wonderful project to be a part of, and not only has it been a joy to create something for children in the midst of all this chaos, it’s also sharpened up my filming, animation and video editing skills to no end. I’m still no post-production expert (there was quite a lot of cursing software at one point), but it’s been a fun learning curve.

First I worked on an ‘about me’ video, which sits among other creators videos for the Let me inspire you section of the DrawAble site. Here it is!

Check out the full page here!

For the second video, I was asked to create an activity resource based on my practice. The very knowledgable team at AccessArt and I worked together to get the activity and tone right for key stage 2 students (aged 7-11 in the UK), and this led to the 3-panel challenge! Check it out below:

And, you can see the whole resource free-of-charge here. Amazing stuff!

Other artists and creators involved in the DrawAble project so far are Stephanie Cubbin, Lizzie Knott and Lorna Rose, with more being added in the coming weeks. It’s a wonderful resource, so be sure to check it out and spread the word!

I’m so grateful to AccessArt for the opportunity, and hopefully my activity is useful for kids (and grown-ups) in finding new ways to be creative.

In other news, as the nights are getting noticeably longer, it’s time to start thinking about the season ahead! Autumn-winter is just around the corner, and now my Spring-Summer 2020 sketchbooks are on sale for just £3.

These sketchbooks are perfect to fit in your bag or pocket, and have crisp G.F Smith paper throughout. I’ve sketched in mine, stuck photos in and painted in it – all mediums work well and there isn’t any bleed through. I especially love the soft gold paper in the middle, it shimmers beautifully in the light.

Here are some lovely reviews from my previous seasonal sketchbook, autumn-winter 2019:

These SS20 sketchbooks are in short supply, so grab one whilst you can for just £3 with free UK delivery (flat £2 P&P elsewhere in the world) and keep summer going for a little bit longer!

And finally! Now that I’ve completed my work with AccessArt, I’m able to get back to my weekly comics work, and turning them into a complete, printed comic. I’m roughly 75% of the way through inking the additional panels, and then I’ll be working on painting these up and getting them scanned and edited to flow with the rest of the book.

I’m still struggling to think of a title for these, and I’m trying to steer away from my usual one-word titling of previous releases (Moon, Rocks, Njálla, etc.). Better get thinking – and thinking in more syllables!

Thankfully I have some time before printing to iron out these details – fingers crossed the new book will be out in October. So I’d better get cracking!

Until time time, stay safe everyone.

x

Shelf-isolating

| rozihath

Greetings one and all!

Low and behold, I’ve actually managed to get myself behind my computer again and offer my wit and wisdom to the world in the form of yet another blog. Crazy! Apparently COVID-19 is doing wonders for my productivity at least 75% of the time (the other 25% is spent aimlessly being annoyed at everything and avoiding the news).

After my last blog I sat down and spent an hour or two really figuring out what I wanted to achieve this month – and why I haven’t been enjoying working on another comic I started months ago. Instead of dwelling on it, I mixed things up a little and set myself the challenge of a…

Weekly silent comic!

That might seem like a punishment to some, but as most of my comics have very little wording anyway, it’s just a further extension of what I normally do. This time, however, I wanted to do some drawing from real life and what better way to start than the room that I have spent the majority of my waking hours in. The living room.

Working in a similar method to the last couple of comics I’ve done, I sketched out my idea into a sketchbook, refined the pencil drawings, took a picture and loaded it onto my computer to digitally draw all the linework. I then printed off a copy and used my lightbox and some gouache paint on mixed media cartridge paint.

It’s also been a great excuse to pull out some of my favourite small press silent comics from my bookshelves, including comics from the likes of Emma Raby, John Cei Douglas and Lando.

The next instalment is a follow on from last week, and I have the idea and concept sketched out already – so the ‘story’ will continue soon. Keep an eye out!

In other news, I also finished up my Major League Mugs drawing of Pee-Wee Hoss McGraw! (see my last blog if this makes no sense to you).

I painted it on cheap sketchbook paper so it got a little muddy in places, and I didn’t do as good a job on the text as I’d hoped, but as the Flomaton Funyuns would’ve been a pretty gritty minor league team anyway, I figure they wouldn’t have minded.

There’s still time to draw your own Major League Mug, so check out my last blog for all the details and get drawing!

Finally, in hope that this may help out another person stuck at home with a grumpy family, last week’s home art school activity was making papercut illustrations together. I started as I meant to go on, with a whale:

This is now added to my ongoing whale sketchbook inspired by Nick Pyenson’s Spying on Whales and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (I read the full one, but if you’re short on time maybe just go for this one).

Anyway, that’s it for now. Remember to sign up to the Good Comics newsletter as we’ll be sending that out to inboxes next week. And, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with the next blog!

Until next time!

x

Disclaimer: This week’s blog is NOT sponsored by shades of red and orange, it’s just apparently my hue of the month.

An Ode to Sparenting

| rozihath

Good morning all!

Welcome to November. I have something special for you all today, a new comic that I’ve been creating on-and-off since June. Although it’s not that long in pages, it took some time to finish purely because of the subject matter and its personal nature.

Also, it’s in a new format for me. One long, continuous comic that is available online for free, and as of yet I have no plans to print.

For anyone outside of close friends and family, I don’t often talk about the struggles of being in very close, emotional proximity to an ongoing and often unpleasant argument over separation and childcare. Some days I manage just fine, and some days I don’t. But, being in this situation for a couple of years now means I’ve been able to reflect on who I am and what my job title should be.

There’s probably not a huge amount I can say as a foreword to my newest comic Sparenting, but here’s something nice from my good friend and fellow comrade at Good Comics, Dr Paddy Johnston. He wrote this to share Sparenting on the Good Comics blog, but it seems perfect for here too:

This week’s Good Friday is something very different, and very personal for the three of us as publishers. I’m lucky enough to have Sam and Rozi not just as co-publishers, but as close friends too. We all met through comics, but if we were to stop doing it, we’d still be close friends, and there’s so much that we share and have shared on the journey of friendship over the last few years.

As such, I was really touched when Rozi let me be the first person (apart from Sam) to see her latest comic, which totally floored me, and not just because it tackles her own personal emotions and a subject I’m aware of contextually. If I didn’t know her at all this comic would still have really affected me, because it nails the art of sharing the personal and emotional whilst still offering an accessible story. Any one of us could be the person she describes, the exhibit in a museum she draws, the empty name tag stuck partially to a shirt not made for name tags to stick to. 

This is why we do what we do, and why comics are often the best kind of medium for what we at Good Comics want to share. Rozi’s words and her pictures are for all of us here. If you’ve enjoyed Rozi’s previous works such as Cosmos, you’ll be familiar with her style and tone, but I’ve never known her work to be this open or this raw. I really hope you enjoy it and connect with it as much as I did.

Paddy

Without further delay, here’s Sparenting.

x

Sniffle Syndrome

| rozihath

Afternoon fellow snifflers.

It seems to be fully-loaded cold and flu season in my neck of the woods, and everyone is sniffling and coughing near constantly. Including me. I’m not sure whether mine is down to autumnal hayfever, a low-lying cold that’s waiting to emerge or my entire head being taken over by a goop monster. Who knows?

Anyway, it’s a busy time of year in the run-up to that yet-to-be-mentioned gift-giving holiday that occurs at the end of the year. I’m finishing up a web-comic, launching a top-secret community-based project and tending to general life tasks which now also include catering for my three new gerbil assistants: Peach, Nugget and White-Knuckle Rog (more on them another time). But still, I have things to show you all!

Autumn-Winter sketchbook
Autumn-Winter sketchbook, inside pages.

Firstly, the autumn-winter sketchbooks I announced a couple of weeks ago are selling fast! There aren’t many left, so if you’d like to join the club of seasonal strugglers, you can pick up your sketchbook here. Each order is lovingly wrapped in brown wrapping paper and posted in a card envelope so it reaches you safely and can be recycled easily.

If yours arrives and you want to share some of your autumn doodles, please do email me as I’m planning on setting up a gallery to share our autumnal feelings. You can contact me here.

I’ve also put up some risograph prints on my store that I printed with Assembly Press earlier this year. They’re in very limited supply, so pick one up quick! Available in two colours – fluoro pink/orange, and fluoro orange/yellow.

Reach A4 Print in orange/pink
Reach A4 Print in orange/yellow
Reach A4 Print in orange/yellow - detail
Reach A4 Print in orange/pink
Reach A4 Print in orange/pink - finer detail

And, that’s about it for now. Keep your eyes peeled next week as I’m planning to finally announce what I’ve spent the past few months working on. I’m equally excited and nervous, so watch this space!

Until next time, stay sniffle free my friends.

x

The Changing of the Seasons

| rozihath
Summer to Autumn – best shared skimming stones and with freezing toes

Afternoon all,

It’s been a while! The last few months have flown by in a blur, and somehow it’s October. Autumn has a way of catching me off-guard every year, and somehow the days have become suddenly chillier without me noticing until I’ve already set foot out of the door.

So, what have I been up to since my last post aside from being cold? Primarily a new web-format comic about family. But that’s been a difficult, emotional piece to work on as it’s really close to my heart. It’s not too far off from completion, but I’m taking some mental space from it for a few weeks so I’m able to do it justice. Secretive, I know! All will be clear soon.

However, I’ve also been working on a new, exciting project I get to share with you all today!

Some background: It’s the changing of the seasons. And, I struggle.

Don’t get me wrong; the leaves changing is beautiful, the sound of rain is serene, but feeling sleep deprived and having cold extremities is awful. It’s depressing, and it can feel never-ending. 

So, I wanted to make something that inspires creativity during the wetter, shorter days but doesn’t have the same pressure as 160 plain white pages of a new store-bought sketchbook, or any organised drawing challenges you find online.

I hand collated and stitched these little books using GF Smith Colorplan 135g paper (citrine and vellum), kraft offcuts, semi-translucent and natural papers. The sketchbooks are just 16 pages long so there’s no pressure of many pages to fill. They’re roughly A6 size to fit in your pocket or bag, and each sketchbook is hand-printed with the specially designed autumn/winter logo on the front, ready to customize.

I’ve made a limited stock of these sketchbooks, so if you’d like one you can grab it for £4 + free UK shipping (Or £6 incl. shipping everywhere else in the world). Check it out on my store here.

What do you all think? Could you use some relaxing autumnal drawing time? Share your doodles with me and I’ll set up a gallery so we can all see each other’s work and conquer the season together.

And that’s it for now! Until next time, keep dry and toasty.

x