Writing

2024 update: At the beginning of this year I embarked on an exploration of the United States focused on visiting the 133 currently designated National Monuments. The Monuments are areas of land or water, or urban sites and structures that have been protected because of their historic, cultural, or scientific interest. They protect both the human and natural history of the United States. How better to see the country and take a deep dive into the history and geography of this vast and incredible place? Also, in order to get anything done, I need a list. If not I’ll just roam off and talk to marmots, or take up spelunking, or open a unicycle repair shop or….

Anyway! I estimate it will take me the next 2 years to complete this journey but it may take far longer as many of the Monuments (I almost said marmots 😂) are located in places that are inaccessible for much of the year. Alaska, for example, currently has 5 monuments. I will continue to keep a studio space in Seattle, and will return there between trips to collate data, scan drawings, and take care of the basic stuff of life. This project is essentially a giant road trip which feels appropriate, America is, after all, car country.  I will primarily be living out of my Jeep - camping, couch surfing, and renting temporary lodgings in places from which I can access various Monuments. 

While I believe the journey itself to be of value, I also aim to create an ‘artifact’ - coffee table book, series of illustrated essays, postcard set - something that documents both the monuments and my experiences traveling to each of them. For now, I will paint, sketch, write, and explore. I trust that in time I will find the right method of artistic documentation. I will be posting on social media and you can follow me RIGHT HERE FOR MORE MARMOT CONTENT, heh. However, as I will at some point be pitching the project to publishers, I won’t be able to put everything online but I’ll send out a reliably sporadic newsletter, which you can sign up for that RIGHT HERE.

the mark

This graphic narrative was first published in April 2021 by Open: Journal of Arts and Letters. This story explores queerness, visibility, sexual coming of age, and identity politics through the story of a girl with a very complicated birthmark. FYI - contains adult themes and nudity.

To read the whole story: https://ojalart.com/wp-content/uploads/TheMark.pdf

The lettering in this story was done by the excellent Michael Stock a graphic designer and comic book letterer based in the UK. He was also the digital editor for the Dead Roots anthology and VS Comics. He has been providing professional comic book lettering service to an international client base since 2011.

Santa Medusa

This comic was originally published by Spiralbound , a comics focused arm of the website Medium. Though they generally focus on autobiographical comics, I was happy to find a home there for this piece which re-examines the story of Medusa.

The protagonist of this tale is a woman with macular degeneration, and she is slowly losing her sight. As she goes through this process she ponders the stories of female saints and compares them to the story of Medusa.

My visual inspiration for this project was Buenos Aires in the 1950’s. I created a limited palette of colors based on 19050’s advertisements from South America. The artwork was all done by hand, ink on paper, scanned and then colored digitally. I think the method worked in some ways and let me down in others. I’m still experimenting with style.

Book Reviews

It’s been awhile since I created one of this graphic book reviews (I’m writing this blurb in 2020 and I did most of these reviews in 2017/2018) and I think I may need to revisit the form! My cartooning alter ego, The Angry Doodler, was born when Trump won the 2017 election and I didn’t know how to handle it. Poltical cartoons and these reviews were a product of my anxiety at that time. I’m an avid reader, and an avid reader of book reviews, and I kind of miss breaking down my favorite reads into panels. A few of these reviews were published by Mcsweeny’s Internet Tendency and there are some roaming around on other sites such as the Seattle Review of Books. I only did a handful of them before becoming too busy with other things.