Lynda Barry’s Syllabus, which excerpts her notebooks with a focus on her teaching, instructs students to draw “electric spirals.” Begin with a single point, she explains, and slowly draw a spiral around it. “If the lines touch, you die.” It’s hard to do well, and even harder if you’re impatient like me. But if you […]
April
I recently reread Maré Odomo’s Internet Comics 1 & 2. These comics feel like an ode to a version of the Internet that no longer exists. At the time they were published (2013 and 2014, respectively), they were already looking backwards; one sequence discusses meeting someone in a chatroom. But the mood of the comic, […]
March
What a strange month. Obviously. I’ve been able, so far, to maintain my artistic productivity through this madness. To say that is unimportant is an understatement, but it makes me feel better. Of course, it’s in large part a function of my privilege and circumstance; I’m able to comfortably work at home, I don’t have […]
February
I’ve started tracking, and trying to think about my productivity in terms of time instead of pages. I try to spend at least two focused hours drawing each day, and that should matter more (I tell myself, and for now it seems to be working) than how many pages I produced in that time. — […]
I Feast on the Moment
Excerpts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf (Also available as a PDF, if you prefer) CONTENTS AN INTRODUCTION ON NOT WRITING ON WHEN TO WRITE ON HOW TO WRITE ON WHAT TO WRITE ON PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ON MONEY ON TIME AND GETTING OLDER ON CRITICS, CRITICISM, AND FAME ON KEEPING A DIARY QUOTES THAT […]
January
Today, I finished and published the essay about Virginia Woolf’s diary that I’ve been working on for a while. This is the same essay that I’ve posted excerpts from for a few months, but now it’s more polished. Read it here. I already wrote for the Comics Journal about my favorite comics published in 2019, but […]
December
January 1920 – The day after my birthday in fact I’m 38. Well, I’ve no doubt I’m a great deal happier than I was at 28; and happier today than I was yesterday. Virginia’s first novel, The Voyage Out, was published when she was 33. Mrs.Dalloway, arguably her first real masterpiece, was published when she was 43, […]
November
August 1922 – I am beginning Greek again, and must really make out some plan: today 28th: Mrs Dalloway finished on Sat. 2nd Sept: Sunday 3rd to Friday 8th start Chaucer: Chaucer – that chapter, I mean, should be finished by Sept. 22nd. And then? Shall I write the next chapter of Mrs. D. – […]
Some Links
Here are a few things I’ve been up to recently: I have a piece in Inkbrick no. 10, which is sadly the last issue of the anthology for now. My strip is an adaptation of a work by Yoko Ono, similar to my piece in Warmer. My 2017 zine about Kevin Huizenga’s Ganges series was […]
October
Jul/Aug 1926 (undated?) – I shall here write the first pages of the greatest book in the world. This is what the book would be that was made entirely solely and with integrity of one’s thoughts. Suppose one could catch them before they became”works of art”? Catch them hot and sudden as they rise in […]