Alec Longstreth's Blog, page 6

June! July!

Well, I was so busy with work that I missed my June update, so here is a twofer.

For the last three months I have been overhauling my Introduction to Hand-Drawn Animation summer workshop for CCS, so that the entire curriculum could be brought online. It was a lot of work because when I teach the class in person, my approach is to animate on paper with pencil, using as little software as possible. This year was a 180 of that -- using RoughAnimator for all of the assignments and the (amazing!) SyncSketch.com platform for all of the lectures and critiques. This meant updating every single handout, creating a few new ones, and converting hundreds of lecture slides into video files. It was a lot of work, but in the end it felt worth it!

I taught the course last week to 12 students in VT, CT, VA, LA, NH, DC, TX, AR, NC, the UK, and Denmark! It all ran pretty smoothly and it was very inspiring to see how much everyone improved over the course of the week. Big thanks to my teaching assistant Ivy Allie (an up and coming CCS senior!) and my wife Claire, who provided childcare for our daughters that entire week, which allowed me to teach.

In June I finished my fourth Isle of Elsi storyline, which was 106 pages. I then put the webcomic on hiatus while I worked on writing the fifth story. It's gone through two drafts and I'm in the process of collecting feedback for a third draft. I will begin posting pages again as soon as possible - hopefully before the end of this accursed summer.

In the meantime, I've finally starting working on Phase 7 #024! I reinstated my "progress bar" over on the Phase Seven Comics website. Currently I'm very slightly more than halfway done, with a goal of putting it out by the end of the year. We'll see if I can make that happen... there is A LOT going on right now!

Ever since the pandemic began I've been doing a lot of extra administrative work for CCS - first helping them figure out how to bring their program online at the end of last year, then helping to get all the summer workshops online, and now planning for the fall. Like everyone, we're doing the best we can with massive amounts of uncertainty. It has certainly been very stressful watching the pandemic continue to get worse and worse in the USA, with no end in sight.

Claire and I are making every effort to stay at home as much as possible. We're doing one grocery store trip per week (wearing masks, OBVIOUSLY), and trying to order other essentials (diapers, pet food, etc) online. The only two ways we have "loosened up" our quarantine are: 1) creating a "double bubble" with Claire's Mom and Step-Dad. This allows them to watch Suzanne and Wendy twice a week which has been an absolute lifesaver for us in terms of our mental health and my ability to catch up on work. 2) When the Santa Fe Public Library began doing curbside pickup Claire reserved a ton of books and has tied this to our bi-weekly trip to check our P.O. Box which is just down the street.

We got a lot of great picture books by BIPOC creators that we have been reading with the girls. Favorites in this batch included:

Carmela Full of Wishes written by Matt De La Peña illustrated by Christian Robinson (This duo's Last Stop on Market Street has also been a beloved book in our house since Suzanne was a baby)
Don't Touch My Hair! by Sharee Miller
Josephine written by Patricia Hruby Powell illustrated by Christian Robinson

On the antiracism reading/education front, since my last post, I read They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (et al) and Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo both first-person accounts about being forced to live in American concentration camps during World War II. I got these books through The Nib's Book of the Month service which is definitely worth checking out. I also began listening to an unabridged audiobook of Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. The more I learn about the long history of racism in Western culture and specifically in America, the more I realize how little things have changed, and how much work we all still have to do.

More books are already on order from Big Adventure Comics and Bee Hive Books. I'll keep posting recommendations as I keep reading and learning.

Suzanne outgrew her balance bike a while back so we ordered her a new "real" bike (with pedals, a handbrake and a kickstand) back in April. I guess a lot of people are biking more during the pandemic, as one of the few safe ways to exercise right now, so it was super backordered, but finally arrived at the very end of June. She's still figuring it out, but it has been nice to have another excuse to get outside. It has been a very hot summer in Santa Fe, so we have to really try and get outside in the morning before it's no longer fun to be outside.

I went through all my photos from the last month and could only find these few where the girls were actually wearing clothes. It has been a "diaper only summer" for Wendy. She's really starting to talk these days, picking up new words all the time, and recently began sitting on the potty (with her diaper still on) while Suzanne is using the bathroom. There's still a long road ahead of her on that front, but it's the light at the end of the tunnel for Claire and me, after four and a half years of changing diapers. She loves getting dressed up ("Fancy!") and then spinning in a circle ("Dancing!"). She is at an incredibly cute age right now, and seems to be very happy at home with us and her big sister whom she loves to follow around.

Suzanne has been climbing the walls a bit during all this. Claire and I have been trying to institute theme weeks (Under Water, Jungle, Robot, Dinosaur, etc.) which has lead to a lot of focused art-making. Suzanne really loves hanging up her new art in her room, the walls of which are now covered in drawings, posters, collages, stickers, etc. I also broke out a huge box of my old legos which she has been very engaged with lately (which has also been very fun for me). Some days are harder than others, but Claire and I are getting better at figuring out different ways to identify what is upsetting her and how to help her get through the rough spots. Both girls are sleeping pretty well these days, which makes everything easier.

This week Suzanne's preschool is having a meeting to try and gauge peoples' interest in sending kids back to school. Although it would be great for Suzanne to get that socialization, the risk - no matter how small its probabilty - to her (and us) and her teachers hardly feels worth it. The beginning of this school year across America is going to be a turning point, and I've got a bad feeling we're only at the beginning stages of this mess....

Hang in there, everyone and stay safe! Wear your mask. Stay home as much as possible. Hopefully we can get things heading in the right direction again eventually.

May!

My goal with these monthly updates was to spend less time on social media and to do more writing this year. I was about halfway through May and had the thought, "Ugh, what am I going to write about this month?" Things here are very much the same as they were in my March and April updates: We are still on pandemic lockdown, my work for CCS is still very intense as we try to get all of the summer workshops online, Claire's out of work so she is taking on more childcare duties (which allows me to keep up with my increased day job responsibilities), my daughters are climbing the walls a bit, but hanging in there. With a complete lack of leadership at the national level, it seemed to me that not much else would change for the rest of the summer, and perhaps the fall (...and beyond).

Then, on May 25th, George Floyd was brutally murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis. Hundreds of years of racism and murder and police brutality against black people in this country, compounded by everyone being cooped up for months because of the pandemic (which negatively effects people of color to a far greater degree than white people), finally reached a boiling point which lead to demonstrations and protests in more than 75 cities around the USA (and world).

I am furious that black people continue to be murdered by the police with little or no repercussions for the officers involved, or the racist systems that fund them. Like many white people right now, I'm figuring out ways to turn this anger into direct action, and to commit myself to the lifelong process of being antiracist.

Black friends, I'm trying to be a better ally. I'm ashamed when I think back on specific moments (growing up, in college, in art school) where either I was being racist, or someone else was, and I did not stop and try to correct the situation. I let you down and I'm sorry, and I vow to do better moving forward.

White friends, below are the steps I've taken so far and the areas of my life where I believe I can actively work to break the racist patterns that I have lived in and benefitted from my entire life. Hopefully you are taking similar steps. If not, perhaps some of this will help you think about ways you can get involved.

1) Show Monetary Support

When Trump was elected Claire and I sat down and looked at our budget. We cut back on unnecessary expenses and used those freed up funds to make reoccurring monthly donations to the NAACP, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, which we have continued ever since. I have now added Black Lives Matter to that list. I will continue to raise these donation amounts whenever it is financially possible for me to do so.

2) Educate Myself

I'm trying to learn more about my own inherent racism and how to be actively anti-racist by reading (and/or listening to) books written on this topic. Back in April, my sister Courtney had a book group where we read So You Want to Talk About Race? by Ijeoma Oluo and then had a discussion about it afterwards. This week I finished White Fragility by Robin Diangelo. Up next is Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi. Each of these books is helping me understand the racist history of our country, what I've been doing wrong, and what I need to start doing moving forward. There are a ton of anti-racist books lists out there. Pick one and jump in!

I'm also trying to read more books and comics by people of color in general! And following more black creators on social media, etc!

3) Educate My Children

I never had an open conversation about race with my parents. I'm watching videos, reading articles, and discussing with Claire how we will have those ongoing conversations with our daughters (currently 2 and 4). For starters we are taking a close look at the media they are being exposed to on a daily basis.

A year or so ago I was very embarrassed when, in a podcast I recorded I asked my daughter what was her favorite song on a compilation VHS tape of Disney musical numbers which she had just watched, and she responded "Zipp-a-dee-doo-dah." Nobody said anything to me, but just the same I felt a deep shame. Afterwards I thought, "Why is this #$%&ing tape even in my house? Why am I letting my kid watch this??!" (and like, why is there a giant Song of the South rollercoaster that opened at Disneyland in 1989 and that is still in operation today???)

Anyway, Claire and I went through all our kids VHS tapes (mostly Disney movies from my childhood) and removed the ones with racist depictions of people of color, including: Dumbo, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and a bunch of Sing-A-Long tapes, which included scenes from The Aristocats, and other offensive stuff. This process also changed how I see other animated films that are racist through their exclusion of people of color. Films like Tangled or Klaus which are 100% white, not just in all the main characters, but also all supporting characters, all background characters. What does this tell your kids, when people of color are simply excluded from a story? We also sought out Disney movies like The Princess and the Frog and Moana, in which most of the characters are people of color.

We have a bunch of diverse picture books in the house by authors who are people of color, and/or that feature children of color, but we definitely still need more. When the girls are learning about something new (for example, potty training), we get a bunch of books on that topic, and we make sure that every story time includes at least one book on that topic. Claire and I decided that from now on every story time will include at least one book with diverse characters, so that our daughters are seeing and empathizing with people of color through the power of storytelling every day. We have yet to navigate the Santa Fe Public Library's curbside pickup system, but I'm saving some of the great diverse children's book lists that are going around right now, and I'm excited to load up on a bunch of books next time we're there.

4) Leverage my Positions of Privilege

I work in higher education, at an art school (The Center for Cartoon Studies), spaces that are predominantly white. The CCS board of directors met and released this statement, committing to being an actively anti-racist institution. I'm currently in a lot of meetings with administrators, faculty and students at the school, and we are talking at all levels about how to change our curriculum and practices to better support cartoonists of color at our school and in the the comics community at large.

5) Continue Diversifying My Comics

Last week one of my previous CCS students, Josh Kramer, posted a link to a 2015 blog post I wrote about diversity in Isle of Elsi, which I had not yet launched as a webcomic at that point. Re-reading it, I see my early efforts in making my comics more diverse. (The post includes a link to a free Photoshop color palette of skin tones which cartoonists can use to add more people of color to their comics). I still have so much work to do in my comics to make sure all readers feel represented, especially in Isle of Elsi, which is for kids.

6) Make Mistakes, Learn From Them

As you can see above, I've made plenty of mistakes in my life, and will sadly continue to do so. (I'm probably doing this wrong right now!). These conversations are uncomfortable, so I'm trying to get better at being present in that discomfort, listening to feedback and trying to improve. Hopefully together we can all tear this racist system apart, one interaction at a time!

April!

April was the height of the Coronavirus Pandemic out here in Santa Fe (and throughout much of the USA, and the world), which made it a very stressful month in a variety of ways.

One of the first stressful things to happen was our chicken Penny went up into the coop and stayed there for about two days. This was similar to what Camilla did last month, right before she died, so I was very worried that we would lose Penny too. I also just began to despair that I was doing something very wrong in the way that I was caring for my chickens.

It turns out that Penny had simply gone "broody" which is when a chicken's hormones kick in, telling her to hatch a clutch of eggs. This behavior has been bred out of many types of chickens, but I guess it is still quite common in Black Australorps. Since we don't have a rooster (you're welcome, neighbors!) her eggs will never hatch, so every day we took them away and pushed her out of the coop. She would walk around the run for a few minutes, puffed up like crazy (trying to look intimidating, to protect her imaginary chicks), repeating this unusual cluck. Then she'd eat a bit, drink a little water and then go straight back up to sit in the coop.

It was like a tiny chicken-version of what we've all been going through -- cooped up in the house going crazy.

Anyway, this behavior lasted three weeks, during which Penny did not lay any eggs (she sat on Henny's eggs whenever there was a new one). Finally her hormones chilled out, she starting laying again and is now back to normal. Claire suggested we get a chicken book, which we did, to avoid any future stress of not knowing what's going on. The good news from all this is that someday if Penny goes broody again we could get some fertilized eggs and Penny could hatch them for us, without the need of any incubators or anything!

The next stressful thing that happened in April, was that CCS made the hard decision to bring all of its summer workshops entirely online (including my Introduction to Hand-Drawn Animation workshop). Given the uncertainty about how the pandemic restrictions will eventually be lifted, this was the only way to ensure the workshops would definitely happen.

We (the CCS administration, staff and faculty) were already swamped trying to get through the last few weeks of the spring semester (also online), so having to come up with a new plan for online summer workshops and roll it out very quickly was incredibly overwhelming. In my 15 years working for CCS in various capacities, this was easily the most stressful month I've ever experienced. Our team is working so hard to keep this tiny school going, no matter what the circumstances. It's an honor to play my small part in that effort.

At one point, I gave a lecture to the CCS seniors and during Q&A one of the students asked me what I was doing to help myself get through the pandemic. I gave a lame "keep my head down; draw comics every day" answer, but afterwards I thought, "What could I do to help myself get through this situation?" The answer I came up with is animation!

This month I started animating every Friday night after the girls go to sleep (2-4 hours, depending on how late I'm willing to stay up). It's been great, because animating is so complicated that while I'm doing it, I'm unable to focus on anything else. It's also super fun for me, and it's a great excuse to try out new techniques from the various animation books I have been reading, or to experiment with various kinds of animation software and hardware.

This lead me to create a new instagram account ( @AlecAnimation ) where I am posting some of my old animations, recommended resources (books, podcasts, etc), and my weekly progress on current projects. It has been a fun distraction, leaning into this hobby which I enjoy so much. It's also helping me prepare for my workshop in July!

Claire was very busy in April too, working on toy concepts for Meow Wolf, and providing extra childcare watching our girls while I've been sitting in a thousand different meetings. In her very limited spare time she has been cooking lots of different soups from scratch, as well as the pizza you see here! She's also been digging in the backyard, planting vegetables in her new raised bed and flowers all over our property. We've already had a few hot days, so some of the flowers have already bloomed and then wilted away, but here are some photos of them at their best:

For the most part, our girls have been great, grinding out the days playing in the backyard, reading books, drawing, painting, watching old VHS tapes, video chatting with friends and family, building with legos and blocks, playing dress up, etc. etc. etc.

Wendy seems blissfully unaware of the current situation - we are all home with her as we usually are, so she seems the most unaffected. As April wore on however, Suzanne began having a harder and harder time being cooped up at home. She doesn't really engage with the Zoom sessions her preschool is hosting so we've mostly stopped doing that. There is just a general feeling of her going stir-crazy, climbing the walls. She's been getting upset more frequently and more intensely over small things. Who can blame her? She should be at school running around with other kids her age, not trying to play make believe with her parents (we do our best, but never quite measure up) or fighting with her little sister over some random toy. Without a clear plan of when/how the current measures will be lifted, it's hard to know when things will mellow back out for her.

There was other stress on top of all this (being far away from my parents, whom I am worried about) but I'm certain if you added up all my stress from every day in April it was probably still less than millions of people experienced in one of those days. I'm very much looking forward to this all being over. I wish we had better leadership at the top.

Well that's all I've got for this month. Hang in there, everyone! Stay safe.

March!

Man... a lot happened last month! The morning after I wrote my February blog post I found Camilla dead in her coop. Like our other chickens, there was no sign of violence or any distress. She just went up to roost for the night and never woke up. It was very upsetting to me; Camilla was always my favorite chicken. Suzanne and I decided to paint the chickens' names on the side of the coop.

A few days later Wendy turned two! Her godmother Liz flew out from Maine for the celebration (and to visit her family out here), just before all non-essential travel was shut down and things really started getting intense out here in New Mexico with the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Wendy's big present was a new tricycle that my parents sent her! Even with the seat adjusted all the way up, it's a little bit too big for her currently, but she still has a lot of fun putting her feet down and scooting it along. Suzanne has also been having fun on the tricycle, even though it is too small for her (even with the seat pushed all the way back). Wendy will grow into it soon and will get many years of pleasure out of zipping down our street on it. Suzanne seems ready for her first real bike!

In the middle of March, it was decided to switch The Center for Cartoon Studies to an entirely online teaching model for the rest of the school year. I taught Professional Practices for CCS remotely for four years and did a couple years of online teaching at the California College of the Arts, so I was asked to help with the rollout. It has been an incredibly intense couple of weeks getting everything in place, but so far our system is working pretty well! I feel very lucky to still be a part of that amazing comics community and will do everything in my power to keep it going through all this madness.

I also feel very lucky to be so busy with work while millions of people around the country are out of work. Claire and I both work from home, so our routines are fairly unaffected by the pandemic stay-at-home orders. (Apparently we've been social distancing for years now?). Suzanne was only going to preschool three mornings a week, so she's home a bit more than usual, but it feels very routine to us. Her school meets each morning in a Zoom session, which she sometimes attends, when she feels up for it.

It seemed like Suzanne wasn't totally aware of what was going on in the world, but then the other day she was playing and I heard her talking about her imaginary ladybug friend, Zingy. She said, "Zingy caught the pandemic, but she's young, so she won't die from it," so obviously she's been soaking up a lot of the news on the radio and from our parental conversations. :(

We're mostly trying to stick to our routines, though maybe watching a few more movies than we would regularly. Pre-pandemic, Claire's mom would take Suzanne (or both the girls) twice a week for long stretches. Without that childcare help, our margins are very tight for getting all our work done, plus there is just the background stress of this entire situation (especially my parents and sisters being up in Seattle, one of the big hotspots of the outbreak). Anyway, out here in Santa Fe, we're doing fine! When I get stressed out I try to remind myself that so many people have it so much worse off than us right now. I'm trying to just keep my head down, work hard, and get through this.

We spend a lot of time in our backyard each day, and it has been heartening to see the leaves popping on plants and the first flowers coming up out of the ground. Spring is on its way out here in the high desert. Hopefully by the time it's in full swing the worst of this situation will be behind us.

Hang in there, everyone!

February!

At the end of last year when we were all really sick, our pediatrician told us that while Suzanne is in preschool we should expect her to get 10-12 colds a year (i.e. once a month). I've been reminding myself of this over and over, and so, when she got a cold in the first week of February, I was not surprised or upset, I just took care of her and helped her get better. Wendy got it too, but Claire and I managed to escape that round!

Wendy and Suzanne are playing together more and more, which is very heartwarming, if not sometimes a little stressful (fighting over the same toy, only wanting something because the other one has it, lots of yelling, etc). The good times far outweigh the bad, but I'm also reading some parenting books right now to try and figure out more techniques for dealing with meltdowns. It seems like a lot of it is just communication, and making sure everyone feels heard.

Wendy is growing so fast. Every day she learns a new word or two, and she is constantly in motion, running around the house, dancing (spinning in a circle), doing laps around the house. I'm trying to soak up these last few baby days before she's off to the races with her big sister.

We're not fully out of winter yet here in Santa Fe, but we have been getting a few nice days (sunny, in the 50s) in between bursts of snow. Claire and I ripped up some of the extra pallets from the delivery of Isle of Elsi and have been using the wood for various projects around the house. The first was building a new outdoor table for the girls. Their old one (built out of an old hollow-core door) was destroyed in the Santa Fe sun. Hopefully this new one, built out of solid wood with a coat of paint on it, will last a lot longer!

I also built a little outside step stool, which makes it possible for Suzanne to help with the chicken chores: dumping in table scraps and checking for eggs! Claire built a planter box so we can grow some veggies in the backyard when things warm up, and then I nailed together a bunch of leftover pallet wood to build a new shade covering for the chicken run.

On the self-publishing front, I finally finished up all my Kickstarter paintings and order fulfillment this month. With that done, it was time to set up the Isle of Elsi Store page. If you missed the Kickstarter campaign you can now order copies of the hardback book, the eBook and the Activity Book.

I also found out I got into MoCCA 2020! So I'll be in New York City on April 4th and 5th selling copies of Isle of Elsi. If you are in the New York area please come check it out! According to my records (aka this blog), I've been attending this show since 2005 and I always have a great time, so I'm really looking forward to this trip!

Wendy rode her sister's balance bike for the first time a few days ago and had a blast (wait 'till she sees what she's getting for her birthday in a few days! ;)

Our oldest chicken, Camilla, has been very lethargic and sad-looking over the last few days. Henny and Penny continue to pick on her (both literally and figuratively), but even so she seems off. Her sisters Attila and Natasha have both long since died, so maybe her days are numbered... It makes me sad. She has always been my favorite chicken!

As I write this, both Suzanne and Wendy are sick again (fevers, runny noses, coughing). I guess they wanted to get a jump on next month's cold!

January!

My new year's resolution for 2019 was "Read more. Write more." I ended up reading about 50 books, which is the same amount I usually read (I'm on goodreads if anyone wants to see what I'm reading), and I didn't write much of anything. So for 2020 my new year's resolution is simply "Write."

After two-plus years of posting daily on Instagram, I'm burned out. I enjoy being able to look back and see my kids growing, but life feels overwhelming enough right now, just trying to get through the day, without also having to constantly document everything.

Anyway, in an effort to kill two birds with one stone I thought I would resurrect my blog this year, doing a monthly post about what is going on in my life. I'll dump some of the photos posted below on Instagram and link back to this post. We'll see how it goes....

Suzanne and Wendy are starting to play together more and more these days, which is very heartwarming. They still need to be supervised, but I can see the hazy outline of a future scenario where they are like sitting in a room together, playing with toys, and I could be using that time to do something else.

We read comics with Suzanne constantly, and it's been amazing to see how she will memorize an entire graphic novel, and then can flip through it herself and relive the story. She's really good with her letters and has started being able to recognize short words in picture books. The thought of her starting to read soon is very exciting!

Claire and I were worried that Wendy was a bit slow to start talking, but then over the last week she has started babbling a lot more and repeating sounds and a few words, so it seems like her language journey is underway! Speaking of journeys...

To avoid all the stress of holiday travel, Claire came up with the idea this year to stay at home in Santa Fe over Christmas and New Year's and then to travel up to Seattle to visit my family for Suzanne's birthday in mid-January. This worked great, the travel was very mellow, but man... Suzanne got really sick the day after her birthday and was barfing her guts out for an entire, horrible night.

The next day my mom threw a joint party for Suzanne, my sister Courtney, and Claire's step-sister Ana, which a few brave souls turned out for. Luckily no one else picked up the sickness! This was like Suzanne's third birthday party (one in Santa Fe before leaving, cake and ice cream on her actual birthday, then this party) so she was pretty excited, even after a rough night.

The absolute highlight of our trip was visiting the Seattle Aquarium to see the otters! Suzanne has been obsessed with otters lately, in large part because of their key role in Finding Dory, which we have watched many times. It was super exciting getting to see them in real life, and we had a fun time seeing all the exhibits with a big group of folks from our families.

Right as we were preparing to leave Seattle, Wendy threw up twice, but then was fine. After arriving back in New Mexico Suzanne threw up a bunch, which then got me sick. There was a lot of barfing on this trip. It made the whole excursion a bit exhausting, but it still felt worth it to see my family. We are thankful to all be home safely, and healthy again, with no family travel plans in the immediate future.

One of Suzanne's favorite birthday presents is a triangle rope ladder thing that I hung from the ash tree in our back yard. While playing on it, Wendy wanted to try our swing again, which previously she had only been able to do sideways (straddling the seat, so she didn't fall out). She was able to sit and hold on, and now loves swinging for 10 minutes at a time. It feels good to be outside - I'm ready for Spring.

Penny has mercilessly pecked all the feathers off of Henny's head. She's also been pecking at Camilla's lower belly. It bums me out, but I guess that's what chickens do. They are tiny dinosaurs after all.

This month I was trying to catch up on all my CCS work while also digitally coloring book four of Mr. Wolf's Class by Aron Nels Steinke. These freelance responsibilities and the aforementioned trip also overlapped with two extremely detailed pages of Isle of Elsi. I only managed to ink them (no color) and on the second one I even needed an extra week, the first time I have missed my weekly page deadline in over four years.

I finished coloring Aron's book last night, and future pages of Isle of Elsi are far less demanding, so I'm looking forward to a calmer February. I'm going to be focusing on (finally!) finishing off the Isle of Elsi Kickstarter and Patreon fulfillment. If you're still waiting on any rewards, keep an eye on your mailbox!

I know this is a long post, but I don't care. I had fun writing this! I'm going to try and keep this idea going for the rest of the year if I can.

A Rough Year's End

Every year I draw an image for the archive of this blog. It is often challenging to select a single image that sums up the entire year, but this year the choice was obvious.

In September we sent Suzanne off to preschool, which was her first time routinely hanging out with other kids in a group setting outside of the house. She quickly began bringing home a variety of colds, which then spread through the house. Usually to Wendy, then Claire, then me. Sometimes they mutated along the way, so that Suzanne caught them again (or maybe she just brought something else home?). This fall my family has been through countless fevers, runny noses and sore throats, bouts of vomiting, multiple ear infections, a herpes outbreak, and two rounds of strep throat for me, which was especially unpleasant.

Every parent of older kids who is reading this is nodding sagely and thinking, "Yes, yes, we went through the same thing," which is what we've heard from everyone in our community. Somehow though, I never got an advanced warning about this as we prepared to send Suzanne off to school.

I remember incorrectly assuming that Suzanne going to school was going to free up a lot of time. "Nine hours a week! That's like a whole extra work day!" I actually took on extra freelance work, and planned to begin all of my Isle of Elsi Kickstarter fulfillment in the fall to utilize the new time that would be freed up by sending her off to school.

Instead, we were sick continuously for almost two months, and I fell woefully behind on everything. I never realized how much of my freelance work schedule is dependent on the girls going to sleep around 7pm so that I can get another four hours of work in before going to sleep myself. That is all thrown out the window when the girls never go to sleep because they are up sick, or I do finally get them to sleep at 10pm but then I have a fever of 102 and so can't power through to get any additional work done.

Supposedly this is a process every kid has to go through (if not in preschool, then in kindergarten), to build up a "super immunity" to common colds. Our pediatrician told us to expect to catch 8-10 colds a year (i.e. once a month during the school year) for the next few years. If you've got young kids, here is my head's up for you: when you send them off to school, clear your schedule and expect your entire family to be very sick for at least the first 2-3 months!

Needless to say, it has been a rough fall and beginning of winter. I'm still not 100% healthy, and trying desperately to catch up on multiple projects that I'm very behind on. I thought I'd have a lot of stuff wrapped up by the end of this year, but now it's looking as though it will take me the first two months of 2020 to be fully caught up on everything. And that's assuming we can stay healthy! I am fully prepared for the cycle of sickness to begin again when we send Suzanne back to school after winter break. Hopefully we'll beat it all by the time Spring arrives!

Santa Fe Isle of Elsi Book Release and Dragon Drawing Party!

Out here at Phase Seven Comics headquarters I am very busy mailing out copies of the Isle of Elsi Kickstarter book!

The Kickstarter backer who ordered the most copies of the book was actually my local comic shop here in Santa Fe, Big Adventure Comics!

This Saturday, November 16th, I'm going to bring those books over to the shop for a local book release party from 1-4pm. All attendees will receive a free Isle of Elsi Activity Book! At 2pm I will be giving a short presentation about how I create a page of Isle of Elsi and then I'm going to lead a Dragon Drawing activity.

If you're in the Santa Fe area, come draw dragons with us! It should be a lot of fun.

Midlife Crisis!

Today I'm 40! I created this short animation to show kinda how it feels

Ignatz Nomination! Denmark!

Last week I found out that my middle grade fantasy webcomic Isle of Elsi was nominated for the 2019 Ignatz Awards in the Outstanding Online Comic category!

It is such an honor to be nominated! I was three years into Phase 7 when I was nominated for the Outstanding Minicomic Ignatz Award, and now this nomination comes three years into working on Isle of Elsi. It's an incredible feeling to get this validation from the comics community after all the hard work I have poured into it.

I've read all of the other nominees' comics, and it is such a wonderful cross-section of what's going on in today's comics scene. Below are links to all of their work - I really recommend checking them out:

 – Hannako Lambert
What Doctors Know About CPR – Nathan Gray
About Face – Nate Powell
Full Court Crush – Hannah Blumenreich

If you will be at the Small Press Expo on Saturday, September 14th, please consider picking up a ballot and voting for Isle of Elsi. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the show, as I will be teaching overseas....

I've been asked back to teach at The Animation Workshop's Graphic Storytelling program in Viborg, Denmark. I'll be teaching a two week unit on autobio comics which is going to be a lot of fun.

It's going to be hard to be away from my family for so long, but I know Claire will do great with the girls and she will have lots of help from her family and also superfriend Liz Prince who is coming out specifically to help with the kids.

It's shaping up to be a very busy fall, but everything that's going on is pretty amazing, so I'm not complaining!