It’s raining in Houston for the fifth day in a row. I need exercise, so I’m walking to my local park, leaping over the two-foot-wide water puddles that scatter the walkway like landmines. Behind me, a car approaches. I brace for a toxic sludge splash, but the car slows down and eases through the nearest puddle. Huh, nice guy. That’s new. Maybe Houston is changing.
The weather is still humid and smothering my pores. Dark clouds linger beyond the nearby industrial plant, waiting to pull the trigger until I’m too far in my walk to make it back to my house without getting drenched. I’m lucky if I find a tree to sit under that isn’t surrounded by mud. Police sirens blitz the air. Then, a fire truck horn. A painful yell follows.
Nothing has changed. The city still cries three times a day, and I’m just an easy shoulder to cry on.
Snippets
It turns out that dinosaurs are very fun to draw. I’ve been drawing them for the last three months for a children’s book. The best part is that I’m still having just as much fun on the project as I was during the design phase. Here’s a tiny snippet of an image because I don’t really know how much I can show right now.
This week has mostly been a slow burn of scheduling things and planning out pages. Perhaps it’s because I’m a bit hungover from Heroes. I did manage to get some drawing in. I really want to do a Star Wars story, so I started sketching another page on the heels of the Ewok drawing that I posted two weeks ago. I’m in the process of cooking something up.
I also purchased a couple new sketchbooks a month ago. I set one aside for normal sketching and I’m dedicating this yellow one to only sketchbook comics. I wanted a space where I could just focus on short stories, and maybe some of these stories could turn into thumbnails for bigger projects one day.
These pages won’t be crazy refined or anything. Storytelling is the focus. Maybe I could gloss them up a bit and print them in a collection of sorts later down the road.
First Dates
Last thing, I was fortunate enough to contribute a short story to FIRST DATES, an anthology comic about first date experiences told through 1-2 page short stories by 50 different creators. It is being published by Inservice Comics and edited by cartoonist Nick Friesen. My story in the book is wacky, weird, and all sorts of fun. The anthology is up for pre-order. Order FIRST DATES at inservicecomics.com now!
That’s it. See ya next week!
Thanks for your time,
Nico