We made it to May! I hope everyone is safe and well despite the obvious coronavirus-shaped elephant in the room. The longer our lockdown goes on, the harder it is to have anything new or positive to say. Nevertheless, remember to look after yourselves the best way you can, whether that’s marathoning box sets on tv or training for a marathon.
I’m still maintaining my goal of one comic a week, which I’m glad for! This last week I finished it a few days earlier (harder than it sounds…) and released it through the Good Comics blog. and shared all the comics in order this far.
Here are week’s 4 and 5 below, to get you up to speed:
Week 4
Week 5
After week 4, I decided to make a dumb poll on Twitter to see what everyone wanted to see included next. Thankfully the people voted for clearly the best option!
I’m starting to get into a good routine with these weekly comics, and I have the rest of the ‘story’ mostly mapped out. It’s still a useful challenge for me, and I’m looking forward to showing you all week 6 (when it’s done). Watch this space!
In other news, I’m very happy to announce that as last year’s Rocks is very nearly sold out, I have donated 50% of the profits made to Bournemouth’s Natural Science Society.
Rocks was very much a project of discovery and realisation about the way I make comics. Between finishing Moon and starting Rocks (note to self: consider more than just one-word titles for future books) I’d hit a wall with creating, and pushing myself through to the end of Rocks was tough yet rewarding. I’m very grateful for the information I gained from the BNSS, and Rocks will always be the one which helped me learn to pick up a pen again and restart my journey, releasing some of that pain I was feeling in Sparenting.
Lastly, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve started work on my next seasonal sketchbook! The remaining autumn/winter books have now fully sold out, and I will be finishing up spring/summer in the coming week or so.
Welcome to May (though, we’re a chunk of the way through already…) and the latest update from HQ. It’s been a busy couple of months as always, but I have plenty to get you up to speed with. So, get comfy and enjoy another creative journey through the workings of my brain.
After my panel-a-day started, I managed to vaguely keep it to a panel-a-day for two-or-so weeks until life came and sat right on my lap, demanding all of my attention. I’d already progressed with a chunk of the text, and in the end, I pushed life aside and sat down to write the remainder of the content. I sketched it all out, inked it, and then painted it in batches. In short, whilst it started as a panel-a-day it definitely ended in a more “normal” way of batch drawing, inking and painting.
Here are some pictures of the process:
As it stands, in true juggling style, I finished the comic and scanned it, but then it took around 2 weeks until I had a chance to piece it all together. However, I put it up on Patreon last week for my subscribers to finally see!
From the very beginning I wanted to create something that was more factual but still keeping that ethereal feel that I like to have in my stories., I also wanted to throw myself out of my comfort zone by avoiding thumbnailing or extensive planning, and drawing everything on the one piece of paper from scratch – even without rubbing out the pencil marks!
Rocks comic in full, draw on six A3 sheets of layout paper from February to April.
It was definitely a different tactic, and at times I really enjoyed it (when I wasn’t worried about finding time TO do it). I’d love to turn it into a DIY zine to get people interested about rocks and just how fascinating natural history is, so my task now is to see if I can take my scans and make them look cleaner for printing; the cheap paper I drew on buckled when I applied watercolour, and it’s left lots of ridges in the scanned artwork which need cleaning up, if possible.
After that, I’ll source for quotes on printing to see how cheap I can make the zine, as ideally, I’d like to have some in schools and libraries as well as sending some to the geology expert at the Bournemouth Natural Science Society (BNSS) for his expertise on the local rock formations. Maybe it would be a good idea to sell them with the profits supporting the BNSS or other local charity? What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts, and watch this space for updates!
In other news, the skate poster my gnarly step-daughter and I created is now out in the world! Assembly Press did an amazing job printing it for us on their risograph printer. Check it out!
Girls’ Skate Night poster – risograph printed in black, yellow and fluro-orange
There were a couple of colour options we could’ve gone for, but we decided to go for the black, yellow and fluro orange inks.
I’m so, so pleased with how’s it’s turned out, and it’s definitely something I wish I could’ve helped with when I was 9. I wasn’t even brave enough to go to a skate park until I was 28, so feeling like I can maybe help future generations of girly-girls, quiet-girls, bookish-girls, loud-girls and any type of girls grab a board and give it a go gives me all the warm feelsies inside. If you’re in the area, come skate with us!!
What else? Well, back on 31st March Good Comics and I tabled and presented at the Laydeez do Comics Festival at Free Word in London. Paddy and I had the opportunity to talk about Good Comics and how it’s evolved in the last few months, and where we’re going moving forward. I’m incredibly excited to be working in a hands-on editing role for one of our next releases, Mohar Kalra‘s Novelty. We released a preview back in March which was beautifully risograph printed, and the whole book will be out soon!
Finally, at the tail end of last month, I put forward my application to take part in a Japanese creative residency as advertised by the British Council. Now, I’ve not tried applying for any residencies before as I’ve always been waiting for the right one… And this, my friends, is it. I’m incredibly excited at the thought, but I’m also well aware that it’s a slim chance I’ll be chosen as there are so many incredibly talented creators out there who deserve to go too. If you could all keep your fingers and toes crossed for me that’d be lovely.
And that rounds it up! You can still keep an eye on my Instagram for vaguely more regular updates than on here (I’m trying to be better!) and subscribe to my Patreon for full access of everything I’m up to. You can also check out Good Comics on Twitter for what we’re up to there.
