Week 1

The first post: the rewards of parenting and comics.

Hello! I’ve started a newsletter and I’ll try to make it worth your while. The least it will provide every week is a silly comic. The good thing about comics is that they take only a few seconds to read. The bad thing about comics is that they take hours to make. It’s like cooking. You can cook for hours for people to scarf down in minutes. And yet we cook.

My rough plan over the course of this newsletter is to synthesise some thoughts and observations and also share general creative process and process work specifically for the graphic novel I’m working on.

But I’ll try to always start with a little comic. Since our child was born in March I’ve been trying to do a very rough diary comic every day, aiming for 6 panels but not being too strict with anything, just jotting down one thing that happened each day.

It started when Fionn McCabe posted on his substack a comic exercise to give a fantastical spin to an ordinary situation. I thought it could be a good exercise for my play-doh brain to try. The result is the first comic here. Then I thought I could do something like that every day. Even if maybe there’s not time or energy for anything else.

This is what they look like in raw mode.

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The fact of childcare is that the days can be long and quite mundane and I was finding days were slipping and blending like it was pandemic times. Keeping a little diary like this has forced me to think hard. And has slowly forcing me back into a habit of noticing. Small things are beautiful and they happen every day. Some are worth recording. Sometimes in retrospect they don’t take an interesting shape and that’s why I’ll only put the best in this newsletter. I promise it won’t be all daddy-comic-blogging. Once a week. Always free.

Fionn is in town and performing at Speaking to Pictures this weekend. It’s a great lineup and always a very cute time. We’ll be there so come say hi. Check out his Substack too!

Mundane Magic

This Week I Learned:

Koalas have two thumbs on each hand. A random kid on the tram told me this. Also they said “You are as young today as you will ever be, and older than you’ve ever been.” So true.

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Today is the last day for comics people to vote in the Eisner Awards. My story ‘Pig’, is up for Best Short Story. In the future I’ll share that story in full and talk about the process.

Thanks for reading and please share the newsletter if you think you know someone that would enjoy it!