Decisions, and an Invitation

getting into the weeds on drawing

Hi!

I come to you with cautious elation this morning. (But this post was written mostly last Friday, so this drawing is the only thing I’ll post about my feelings about the primary. Curious where everyone’s at with this, I’m a political dunce, but things have been feeling pretty un-nuanced lately – easier for a dunce like me).

I did a really fun Substack Live with an absolute pro of a cartoonist Jason Chatfield last week (here’s his Substack, if you want to subscribe). It was so much fun talking shop with him. Do you feel less connected with your professional cohort since the pandemic, or is it just cartoonists, or just people with young kids? Or…just me?

Speaking of Substack Live and isolation, I’ve been feeling something new lately: the need to teach. I think it comes a little from parenthood of an almost-four-year-old, so I’m in teaching mode a lot. And a little with disgust over AI and mindless stuff replacing culture. Cartoons and comics feel like they’re slipping through our fingers a little. (See picture of this all-black box of crayons I got because I am now into kids’ art supplies. How goth are they?).

OK so with that said, as an experiment, I’ll be on Substack Live this Sunday at 4 PM and I’ll quickly teach you the basics of drawing comics. Maybe it’s a medium you’d like to tell your own stories in (or…read more of?). I’ll do a tutorial and then open the lines up for your questions, thoughts, stories. Come prepared with something you like to draw on and something you like to draw with. And a ruler or right-angle ruler thingy if you have one, please.

Forgot to post the latest Dear Pepper, which you can read here. I really liked this question.

Prints and books here, Mugs and prints here, Instagram here. Bluesky here. You know what, google my Bluesky if you’re on there, which I doubt - hunting down these links is deadening. Except this one. Much more unspoken and unwritten. (I’ve been beside myself re war with Iran – note that I wrote this on Friday/Monday).

Want to hear something funny? I am posting hours late this morning because I didn’t pre-load the little details of this newsletter (links, pictures) and I’m with the baby all day and that’s how slow it is to do small things with a baby around. Larger things – expansive thought – are somehow easier? And that brings us to….TODAY’S POST, which is a draft of another illustrated chapter from the book I’m working on, What to Do When, and a description of how I approached working on it. I like writing about this so much!!!!!!! It’s the best antidote to the usual secretiveness and shame and neuroses I surround my work time in. Thank you very much for reading. Here goes: