IN THIS UPDATE!
COMICS IN THE FRONT
FINISHING WRITING A BOOK
THOUGHTS ON MOVING FORWARD
COMICS
I have talked enough about how my life has gone and the effects it’s had on things. But the main thing I’ve had to learn is that this may not be a window I have to get through and could just be the way things are for me. I could keep complaining but at this point it’s just time to adapt. People will die, my body will fail. These are unavoidable and sad, but are just part of life. And I am glad to be here living it making these pictures with you.
So the main adaptation I am doing is changing how I make my art. I do not have time to color, and I don’t like coloring. So why am I so committed to it? It’s gone.
I love the process of good clean inking, but I also find janky lines fun and it matches the “message” of the work better. I asked myself if I was only going wild on the inking to flex or as an ego thing and didn’t even get to an answer before deciding. It’s gone.
Here are the first attempts at comics with the new approach. I straight up love them. Maybe we bring stuff back into the work, but any exertion that isn’t on drawing pages of stuff is going to be approached with extreme hesitation.
I genuinely like these results and it’s fun to do. The next Everything Sucks story is the next thing on the agenda and it will likely be drawn in a similar way. At first I thought this was some kind of compromise, but going back to the first issues it seems more in line with the original intent. To draw fun comics about some dudes. I am excited to get into it and for you to read it!
Finishing a Book
As I am typing this I am in the process of sending in the final script for a very very late book. Here is a little of what that process looks like.
Going through so much caused a lot of delays and weirdness on this book. And with those delays came time to look at things and rework them in a way that is not natural to me. Generally I write things in one or two passes, but with starting and stopping you can see layers of time and forced stops leaving me to work over a version of something that is almost a different writer.
At first I thought the layers of editing would help, but now I don’t think this is going to lead to a better or worse book. I just think it took more time. I am a person who works by habit and intuition, not by planning. And having my routines and processes disrupted has been a very difficult experience.
The book is going to rule, but I hope to never repeat this process again!
Thoughts on moving forward
I want to come back to regularly posting comics online and sharing them, but it wasn’t possible with the extra stresses and tasks that came with all of my obligations. I still have some things to clear up before resetting fully. (If you have a missing package, I am talking about you!)
I have four books coming out this year and I am incredibly excited. But the wait time and turn around on publishing kills so much of my momentum. I want to make pages, and then show you the pages. I am not particularly interested in the kind of attention and awards that come with the more traditional model. It means more for me to receive an email from a reader about something or see a book on a shelf of a store.
So starting next week Monday-Wednesday is only going to be for working on comics for this mailing list for a while. What the results of that work are is unclear and I don’t want to make a plan for it. If you want to support it, please consider hitting the paid level or sharing my stuff around.
Appreciate you,
Michael Sweater