What I'm working on
books,BTS sketches, mini comic ideas, hopes + dreams
I really enjoy asking my friends how their work day was, especially as a lone cartoonist. And because my friends are nice, the question gets flipped back to me. I don’t know why I’m always surprised by this. I usually simplify my answer, or try to give the most exciting pieces to ~create a story.~ Here however, I think I’ll do the opposite. Give y’all the long strokes of the current comic / illustration projects I’m working on…in the amount of details that I can comfortably share, without spoiling any books’ debuts or stepping on contractual obligations.
At this moment with Crumble (written by Meredith McClaren) we’re finalizing the cover! I finished the interior pages at the beginning of the year, so now we are able to focus completely on the cover and any edits thereafter. This part of the process always feels a bit pulley? It’s not just an art director giving their opinions it’s an entire sales or marketing team, and you gotta figure out how to not compromise how YOU envisioned this cover and and also appeal it to their instincts.
Crumble is due to be published a year from now, but it’s kind of amazing to think about how long I’ve been sitting with this project. Soon she’ll be out on her own! Meredith and I sent out this pitch sometime in early 2021. I remember because I was drawing the pitch pages during January 6th, in Nantucket. (I truly have the worst, “where were you on Jan. 6th” alibi hah. That’s 3 years! I’m happy that Crumble will soon be out on shelves and y’all can read Meredith’s touching story.
I’ve also begun inking pages of Millie of the Manor (written by Karina Evans). Last year I think I found my cap with how many projects I could concurrently work on, and I’m trying to combat that burnout this year by completing the inks for Millie slow and steady. Which really just means I’m setting a page goal every day/week to hit and if some days I finish way earlier than expected, I’ll switch gears to an activity that will refill my creative juices. I know a lot of artists LOVE inking their work (I love coloring mine) but inking for me is so draining.
Both Millie and redacted were books that Karina and I sold with our agents to Harper Alley in 2022. Right now with redacted, Karina and our editor are in the script phase, so I’m staying connected to the processes and tinkering with character designs and setting layouts before it’s my turn up to bat. Plus, I have some other work! So I’m fine with keeping this one on the back-burner of my mind.
Karina’s got such a charm to her writing, and when she was telling me about some of her other ideas, I really fell in love with redacted x2, a story that I first was describing as Yellowjackets but PG. Now however, it has transformed into something completely of its own. Serious praise to Karina, she is a writer to be reckoned with how quickly she can turn around her ideas. Very admirable. Anyway, with redacted x2, it’s a story I really hope will be successful on its pitch. We’re getting ready for that now which for me means character designs, test pages, any sort of visuals we’ll need so it’s ready to be ~*received*~
I am content with this amount of work-drawing, but I do feel a lump of guilt for not putting equal amount of time in to writing. Ironic I know, that I have now spent some time writing this newsletter to you all. I really do want to write my own graphic novel, in a subject that is personal to me and could mean something to younger readers. I have ideas! I write down those all the time. What I’ve been learning from writer friends or the workshop I took, is that I keep waiting for the ~perfect~ time to sit down and write. I look for gaps within my drawing work and life events to have a clear, uninterrupted space to start writing. The reality that I’m figuring out, is that will never happen. Especially the life events, those just come unexpectedly and sweep you off your feet — sometimes in a Aladdin-magic-carpet-ride kind of way, other’s as a roundhouse kick to your ankles.
But yes I got ideas. And yes I will start them.
One idea that I think will make a better mini comic/ one that I self-publish (I qualify this because I’m not sure if it fits into this middle-grade artist category I’ve seemly found myself in), but I want to create a story about an artist (I’m imaging someone like me who works less realistically and leans more stylized) takes a job as a police sketch artist, and does a terrible job so they can’t locate any of the petty criminals.
I like to listen to dance-y music when I write. I’ve been remembering how much this album slaps.
I’m thinkin’ about you,
Andy