New Comic: Raymond Briggs

I have a new comic up on my Patreon about the amazing cartoonist and children’s author Raymond Briggs, who died on Tuesday at the age of 88. As a way to honor and celebrate this amazing artist, I’m temporarily removing the paywall for the next week. Come on over and read it!

He was blooming marvelous!

A Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher in New York

Last night my mind was blown when I got a RARE sighting of a bird normally found no farther than Texas in a cow pasture 30 minutes from my house in New York! And what a bird! The scissor-tailed flycatcher is probably as glorious a bird as there is. I only saw it fly a couple of times, but with that tail it was hard to miss! 

Flycatchers are my new favorite bird (don’t tell woodpeckers) and I had put the scissor-tail on a dream list. I never thought I’d see it so soon! It was surreal and oh so magical. Only the cows were not impressed!

Rainy Day Music

Yesterday totally spontaneously, I made a twitter thread about one of my favorite things to study–rain in comics. Growing up in California, rain was my only association with “weather” and I learned to draw it by studying Tintin comics. Ever since then I’ve had a fascination with how cartoonists and illustrators draw and evoke this atmospheric weather pattern. It was a strangely fun thing to do and people shared some of their favorite depictions of rain in comics. Rarely, is Twitter that pleasurable! I finished the thread last night with this comic I made two years ago when I was experimenting with pen lines, so I thought I’d share it here in case you aren’t on twitter–and who wants to be these days?

New Comics Every Week at Patreon

Hi Friends!

After years of thinking about it, I finally decided to to launch a Patreon for my diary and sketchbook comics.

My daughter Poppy was diagnosed with Long COVID and is home for the foreseeable future, which is making work slow and intermittent. I am still working on the book about my mother, but the needs of my Homelife (trademark pending) have caused me to rethink work in general and I’m unable to take on any large projects outside of the book right now.

I’ve resisted the Patreon idea for a long time. The vulnerability around it is huge–what if no one comes? And who needs another reason to be on the screen? Yet, I have a backlog of unpublished work and I can’t afford to print it in a new issue of Paper Pencil Life for the time being. Also, so much of what I make is about knowing how and what I am living and thinking. Sharing it helps me feel connected to what others are living and thinking too, something I need more than ever now. I’d love to be able to share it with you.

Subscribers will get comics weekly, with occasional posts about my memoir process and missives about comics and life. Come on over! It’ll be good!

Still here in COVID Land

Here we are still in the trenches of COVID! There have been new developments even since these entries–so Poppy is still home for the time being. Some of us are getting more sick of it than others!

Isolated But Not Alone

This sucks folks, I’m not going to lie, but if anything this has shown me how connected we are. What an abundance friendship and family is. It’s keeping us afloat!

Cough Cough

Again, I want to say: we understand that home testing kits have a margin of error. We continue to remain vigilant and isolated. Stay safe everybody!!

Twist!

And just in case you are worried: we know that home kits give false negatives and are still isolating and taking every precaution we can. Graham has completely recovered from whatever was ailing him.

And So It Begins

I decided to keep this diary going as long as I can. It’s mainly for my family’s record, but I thought I’d post it as long as it makes sense (and my health allows). Yesterday was the first full day of COVID-19 in the house–and it’s catching! Or is it??

It’s in the House

Last night’s diary comic! It finally happened! My hope is that we get this over with quickly & on the lighter side!!