I spent a very long time trying to think of what would be written on the sorceress’s book in the bottom right of the page but then I decided it was so arcane that mere mortals could not even perceive it.
This drawing took forever; this is what I was talking about yesterday when I said I expected to draw more specific stuff from the book. I would still be drawing it if I had gone with that idea and only illustrated this page with indigenous Michigan plants mentioned in the book.
The Man told me that’s NOT how you carry a deer, but I mean, how many deer has he carried in his life? Maybe he’s just not as strong as he thinks he is.
This whole image cracks me up.
It works excellently as an introduction to the entire project; it’s the only one that ties directly back to the book in terms of locating it in Whiteheart, Michigan. The others read more traditionally like fairy tales than this. I think it’s also the shortest of the 13 stories in this book.
Long time readers will note that I employed a completely different style of art than I used for the 4 previous volumes. When I originally envisioned this project, I expected to draw a lot more symbols that specifically sprung from the pages of The Waters; in the long run, the style choices I made precluded that type of detail, but I did feel pretty strongly that this page, at least, needed to feature a LOT of celery.
It was August of 2022 when Bonnie Jo Campbell commissioned the View from Whiteheart, Michigan map and sent me the manuscript for The Waters for reference, and November of that year when I sent her the final version, which means I’ve been working on this comic book for approximately 2⅓ years.
All the others took like 2–4 months.
I’ve still got some tweaks here and there plus the 4 color pages for the covers, but today I finally finished the last page of the body of the work. And good timing, too. In 12 days I have to lay out The Pencil Eaters Volume 2 so it can get to the printers in time for the release party May 13.
But until then, I’ll focus on getting this book to the printer and uploading the pages as they’re finalized.
it’s very different from any of the other books. It’s shaped like a comic book but it reads like a hand written and illuminated fairy tale manuscript, for reasons that I think will be obvious to anyone who’s read it. It’s a very inspirational book, and it inspired me in refreshing and magical ways. I expect the people who liked the other ones will like this one, plus it can be enjoyed on its own without any reference to the source material.
This is an unfinished detail from the inside front cover/table of contents: “The Spirit of the Waters.”
This image pretty much expresses the state of the union, to my mind. It’s been a while since I drew a political cartoon. Almost precisely 8 years. It takes a lot out of you. And I did this the old fashioned way, no help from Photoshop.
This Saturday, April 5th, well over 1,000 protests are expected all across America. Either you know why or you’re part of the problem. I’m glad to live in a city where 75% of the people get it.
I made this sign 2-sided because we’re not going to let the bastards grind us down.
Can you believe how many meerkats I crammed into this sticker? Originally it was a more diverse group of creatures, to wit, a kangaroo, a llama, a panda, an elk, a sloth, and an ostrich, all wearing cool Black Rock Desert garb, but the client requested…moar meerkats in lab coats.
The name of this vehicle is the Databeast and it’s a real truck, somewhere.
Well, here is a meerkat doing data entry at Burning Man. That’s what it is.
Happy International Trans Day of Visibility! As always, I’m nonbinary. So, I have reason to believe, is this meerkat.
My poor, neglected blog!
I’ve been diverting 100% of my creative energy into the new comic book since October but it is still tantalizing in the Zeno’s paradox of incompletion. Very close. SURELY by next month. Unless I break both my hands or fall into a coma or die, it HAS to be done by next month. I just have to finish one interior page and the front cover, inside and outside and also start and finish the back cover, inside and out.
So close.
I took a little break over the last week or so for this small commission of a series of 6 stickers featuring a meerkat in a lab coat at Burning Man.
So that’s what this is: 1 of 6. I’ll try to post them every day until you have experienced the complete adventures of Census Meerkat. And pretty soon after that you can watch this space for Bonnie Jo Campbell Comics Volume 5.
And here is the sister bulletin board. It’s slightly bigger than the original and I definitely wish I had had more time to fill it up.
I also wish I’d had time to make the stems curlier.
Anyway, let it not be said that I didn’t do my part in preparing the school and the students for autumn.
OK, so as mentioned in my last post, I now have control of the second bulletin board again, and finally I had the chance to coordinate the 2, in this case with a harvest theme: gourds and mushrooms. I don’t know. That’s what came out.
I’m making 2 separate posts even though they’re linked.
I’m pretty happy with the gourds and mushrooms, but I would have been happier if I had more time. I lost a couple days because the AC has been out since May and it’s kind of unbearable in there most of the time, and then I was called away to Kansas for family stuff. So I really jammed to get these up in 2 days.
If I had had more time I would have made more gourds and mushrooms. Some of them I spent a lot of time making and some I dashed out, but they all look OK, I think.
Of course, Arizona is experiencing record-breaking heat, and even Kansas is pretty warm and not at all autumnal.
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