These are getting longer. Should I start putting them under a cut?
Here’s a preview of the book I’ve been working on since early 2016 – not continuously, but I’ve definitely put a lot into it. I wrote it in thumbnails, set it aside, then came back for edits and final pages. It’s about family and geography; it attempts to develop an idiosyncratic vocabulary of color; it folds together my formal/appropriative and narrative impulses in a way that I like.
Now I have something presentable enough to share with friends for feedback, which I’m often hesitant to do but which is always helpful.
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Little Angels, Aidan Koch
The Parallelogram Box, Aidan Koch – What does it say about comics when the Whitney has a full run of Koch books for sale and 90% of comic stores have none? Probably nothing except that a Koch piece happened to be on display. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to get these without shipping costs.
Shoulder Low, Molly Hastings
23 Skidoo, Al Columbia
The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson – Essays by one of our greatest living novelists. Highly recommended, difficult reading in that it often makes you feel stupid, but it’s very appropriate to our times. Prescient and comforting, it looks forwards and backwards at once.
Swing Time, Zadie Smith – I read this in a day on a long plane trip, which is a great way to consume any compelling art. There’s something about being hermetically sealed and up above the rest of the I like Zadie Smith a lot, and this is probably my favorite. It combines the mid-career skill and rigor of NW with the ambitious scope of her earlier work. Disparate ideas – Fred Astaire and development projects, celebrity culture and imperfect parents – fold into each other in a way that makes them appear to fit naturally.
Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
Acorn, Yoko Ono – Both potential indirect source material for an upcoming project. Some of the material is very compelling, like: “Watch a hundred-year-old tree breathe. / Thank the tree in your mind for showing us / how to grow and stay” – and other stuff doesn’t work for me at all. But the least compelling parts, by far, are the descriptions of instruction-based performance pieces at the end of GrapefruitWith the exception of Cut Piece, which I like, they seem to suck all the mystery and vigor out of the written instructions. Interesting.
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Highlights this month:
- Read two Koch comics back-to-back, was reminded once again that carefully deployed simplicity Saw a way to apply this insight to a current project without being derivative.
- Salvaged a project that I thought was beyond repair by throwing out half of it and redrawing several parts. As always, I really enjoy revision, and I continue to find that time is the best tool for making myself a good editor of my own work.
- Finally bought a copy of the Smithsonian newspaper comics collection, which as you might know can be had for next to nothing. I’ve hesitated to dive into several strips, particularly Krazy Kat, because I recognize they will require a depth of focus and engagement that I want to be prepared to offer. This way I’ll at least read a bit from each of the great strips.
- I’m excited about the climate anthology. I’ve been reviewing submissions and I’m optimistic about our ability to guide contributors towards a cohesive, compelling set of work. It’s been a while now since I’ve edited anything and I think I’m good at it under the right conditions.
Lowlights:
- I think I’m drawing too fast – I’m getting impatient at times and it’s making me sloppy. I’m not sure how to fix this – I want my drawings to stay loose and iterative.
- Several periods this month with no drawing for personal reasons, both good and bad. There’s a tension between wanting to maintain an iterative approach and wanting to adhere to a schedule.
- Setting goals, establishing rhythms, and just falling one step short of maintaining them.