the arrival of the latest volume of Valérian and Laureline

the arrival of the latest volume of Valérian and Laureline

Rediscovering an old artistic love.

One of my birthday presents:



Paisley designed and made a book bag for me. It is strong and has pleasing colours and textures, and it holds my reading glasses and up to three small books or one biggish one. I am so impressed and delighted by it!

A “selfish” day -- everything I did today was for me, including just taking it easy for a while, reading a book I’ve been meaning to get to, and drawing a page all the way from “blank paper” to “drying ink”...

The library branch closest to our house has finally installed an after-hours drop-off slot. Given that I am an inveterate last-minute returner of books and user of dropslots (“due today” actually = “due before the library opens tomorrow”), it's nice to have one closer to home.

Cleopatra in Spaaaace! by Mike Maihack, a cartoonist whose work I very much appreciate. Just read volumes 1 and 2 this mornin!

I am just now reading Reading Comics, and wanted to share with you what I ran across in it:

At one point, the author decides to provide a list of “things he loves about comics”, some of which he discusses in depth later... but then goes on to provide a list of other things he loves which won't get their own chapters. And his list goes on for several pages. And one of the things he loves about comics is this:

“Dishman, John MacLeod's minicomics superhero, whose entirely useless power is to clean and put away dirty dishes by waving his hand at them (he got it from radioactive Fiestaware) and who feels compelled to try to fight crime with it anyway”

Try to imagine my shock and delight on seeing that. When I picked the book up, I had no idea this was in there. There are some guys who know that, anytime someone writes a book about comics, their name will get dropped and their comic will get mentioned. I am not one of those guys. But thank you, Douglas Wolk, for letting me feel like one of those guys for a moment!

Just got new volumes of 20th Century Boys (#17) and Bakuman (#7) -- two of my current manga faves!

My goal from Day One with Space Kid! was for it to be published in hardcopy like Scott Pilgrim, so I used Scott as a template: I chose the size of my original art to reduce down to the same sized page as the Scott books, etc.

Today, while taking stock of my progress, I noted that Scott #1 is 168 pages long. A quick eyeballing tells me that it's probably the thinnest of the six volumes. I'm thinkin that too much shorter/thinner than that will make my book look insubstantial and not worth investing in, perhaps.

So: by the time I finish Episode Three of SK, I will have 115 pages. Not quite good enough. After Episode Four, I will have 177. Fair enough.

Ergo, after I finish drawing Episode Four, I can start shopping it around to publishers. Maybe the first stop on my itinerary should be Oni Press... :P