a brief account of my current projects

It's been a really busy week of work. I love to work! I'm basically not making any money right now, so my funds are dwindling, but the stuff that I'm working on makes me happy. The money will come. Right now, I'm thankful for the job that I've invented and hired myself to do.

I started my next book this week. I stayed up late one night and wrote the first hundred pages or so, fast and messy. Now I'm going back and working out the pages more carefully. The book is called "The Thought Cloud Family" (book one) and it's going to be an ongoing series of graphic novels. This first instalment will be 200 pages or so. I've decided that making these books is my real job, and I'm hoping that the world will take me seriously and stop making me do things that aren't my real job in order to pay rent. Hear me world.

I'm also preparing for ArtFest. If you don't already know, ArtFest is an amazing festival that goes on in Port Townsend, Washington every year. It's organized by my dear friends Teesha and Tracy Moore, and has become a huge highlight in my year. I'm teaching 2 full day drawing workshops. I never thought I'd want to teach, but Teesha and Tracy encouraged me, and now I'm back for my 3rd year. The first two years I felt like I was fooling everyone. I was sure that at any moment, everyone would realize that I was only pretending to be a teacher and kick me out. It was thrilling and fun. Rethinking my class each year has been one of my hugest learning experiences. This year, I think I've managed to trim off the fat, and hone it into a pretty tight workshop. We'll see. The students are always great. It's probably the most supportive crowd of people I've ever met.

Each year I've taught at ArtFest, I've created a class zine to give to everyone. This year it kind of took on a life of it's own. It's called "The Mark Maker's Manifesto and The Thought Thinker's Theorem" (or TMMMTTTT for short). It's basically an extra credit report to accompany my book "Capacity" ( if you've read the second to the last page, you already know that "Capacity" was my final thesis for the imaginary school I'd been secretly attending). The zine also doubles as a job application, because once you graduate from school (even an imaginary one) there is still the problem of making a living (refer the first two paragraphs of this blog post).

The other thing I've done this week is write a short story. I usually don't write in prose. All my writing usually filters into my comics. But I was eating dinner last night, and suddenly a story happened inside of my head, and I found myself reaching for a pen and paper. It's called " The Guy Who Invented Elbows (A Ghost Story)" It's going to actually be part of "The Thought Cloud Family" (book one) but will remain as prose with accompanying illustrations.

And that concludes "a brief account of my current projects". Thank you for listening.