I did this a few months ago, for the cover of a chapbook sold to raise funds to help the Main Street Museum of White River Junction, VT recover from last summer’s flood. The book featured HP Lovecraft’s story, Whisperer in Darkness, stills from a recent fan movie based on the tale, and drawings of the monstrous Mi-Gos [above].

It even glows in the dark || click | big

What does any of that have to do with flood relief? Well, the story takes place soon after Vermont’s previous great flood, in 1927, when Mi-Go corpses are found floating downstream in the Green Mountains. These creatures are “hideously crablike” alien-gods who get up to who-knows-what kind of ancient awfulness in the woods.

The drawing was commissioned by Steve Bissette and Jen Vaughn. Jen also printed these, with glow in the dark ink. I have a few of these unbound prints. Anybody want one? I’ll include it with your next comic order.

If you’ve been keeping score at home, the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend ended a couple of weeks ago. And if you don’t like baseball metaphors, then go read another blog! Excuse me. I mean to say the full Forest Primeval is now up (in order!) in my comics section.

Chapters 3 & 4 dropped in a new issue of Oak & Linden at the end of February. That’s the launch party invitation above. And so, just as I released my 5th issue of Oak & Linden, Vermont released me from her slushy womb. This metaphor is about to fall apart, since Caitlin, our cat and I moved into my parents’ attic while we look for a place back in New York. I suppose I actually climbed higher into the proverbial uterus.

So that’s my life. More to come, my darlings, including ordering info once I print some more copies of O&L#5. I just know you can’t wait!

Bonus:

It’s “the holidays,” and it’s been lovely, but I wouldn’t want the internet to think I’d forgotten it. So here I am, with another short-term memory-drawing of the north country. It was funny passing by the same spot the next day and realizing how different the construction of the bridge is, and how there are bigger, uglier buildings just past it. But, isn’t that the great part about memory? The relevant parts stick out. I’m really enjoying doing these landscapes in this way. I think it has a lot to do with cartooning, and with only including the pertinent details. If I ever teach a class, I’ll probably make my students do some memory sketching. First I’ll show them Laura Park, who does a lot of it.

In other news, my whirlwind tour of the New York metro-area is drawing to a close, and it makes me sad. Caitlin and I extended our Christmas stay in Connecticut, due to that big snowstorm the entire Eastern Seaboard is talking about. One of my oldest and dearest friends was staying there, with my parents, and blended right in, an extra sibling, just like he used to when we were kids. That was lovely.

The other day a bunch of us took the commuter rail down to Grand Central. It was the day after the storm, and the train was packed. My dad had to go to his bank, my sister to the French Consulate, my Chad (that’s the friend I mentioned) to Brooklyn, along with a friend of his who joined us on the train. Caitlin and I took the subway over to Penn Station, and never emerged to the light of Manhattan. We just got straight onto a New Jersey Transit double decker train and took it to her grandmother’s, where we’ve been the last two days. Upon arriving in New York, neither Caitlin or I felt the Country Mouse sensation that I’ve had when emerging from a day’s travel on Amtrak directly from Vermont. There was none of that “gorsh, there sure are a lotta pretty people…an’ boy do they move fast!” kinda thing. I don’t know if it was the buffer of some days spent in the suburbs, or the familiarity of the commuter line, or what, but it just felt comfortable and right.

I’m looking forward to our approaching weekend stint in Brooklyn. I miss the old borough, and haven’t been back since August. I’m worried that I might never live there again. I can’t stop thinking about what I’ll do, and where I’ll be, after graduating (unless I fail) from CCS this coming May. I know I’ll stick around in Vermont for a while, but I don’t know for how long, or how I’ll be paying my loans. Ah, the future! There’s nothing like the New Year to make you obsess over your plans, is there? Welp, that’s my life. Sorry to get all reflective on yas.

Update: Apperently there was never a working caption on this thing: That’s Paradisa’s Rockit Rocket from Planet Nymphonomena. Totally unrelated to this post. More at nymphonomena.tumblr.com

Recently I’ve been working day and night, then lazing about at home for hours staring at a screen, often in a state of effed-up-ness. Also eating out too much, but eating local at home, and having overnight visitors on the weekend. We go out and do touristy things and then go to a hip place and drink micro brews. That’s exactly how I lived when I lived in New York!

The difference is all the time I spend here making comics, reading comics, and talking about comics. Which isn’t to mention the time I spend analyzing movies, watching animation, or with a group of friends trying to one-up each other with crazy stories or better jokes. And also seeing magnificent vistas as frequently as when my 14th-floor dorm window looked onto the sun setting behind the Empire State Building. Here instead of stone towers I’ve got rivers, hills and trees. I can dig it, but sometimes I still long for the Big Shitty. At least here in White River I’m still surrounded by ambitious, driven and funny people.

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Yes, maybe you’re right, even I didn’t think it would be three weeks before we spoke again. Finals season has come and gone, and I’ve got 23 great minis from my classmates to show for it. I’m still collecting myself after a wild month. But, I can at least tell you that the Upper Valley is bursting with lilacs right now and its downright glorious. Lots more sketchbook pages and some processy-behind-the-scenes stuff to come. I promise.

Things have been lovely lately. I had a visit from a whole bunch of family, plus love-of-my-life Caitlin this weekend, and we saw a bonfire, a frat house, and some fun things around WRJ, VT. It was refreshing to see the town through their eyes, and it made me feel less like I was born to run from it. Last night I even caught up on some emails I’d been neglecting. I’m feeling rejuvenated!

This time I put a comic excerpt on my normal website; check it oooot. Oh no, you don’t want to go to my website? Fine. Here it is:

The leaves are at about half-saturation point here in the wilds of Vermont. Prime leaf peeping just in time for Columbus Day weekend. Suddenly White River Junction is a far less gloomy town. Walking on a path through some very young woods to school and back makes me understand some of the appeal of living in the country. And then I remember that to really live in the country, you have to drive a car.

Anyhow, here’s some more messing with the G-nib…and with prof/Swamp Thing artist Steve Bissette‘s style (in both form and function). Tryin to pick up what he’s been puttin down.

One of my roommate’s last name is Horak, which sounds like a Stan Lee monster name, but is actually Czech for Man of the Mountain. (Which seems really long for two syllables – maybe Mountain Man just has too much of a negative connotation?) Last week in drawing class we went to a poet’s house and drew Mt. Ascutney, which is a mountain way bigger than the wimpy little Green “Mountain”s. This week we went up it. In between, I made this comic.

Well friends, it’s countdown to Escape from New York. I’m really sad to go. I love this place, and I love all my pals that live here. But I’m leaving this Saturday.

I’ve been meaning to show the page below for a long time. It’s from a few months back when I was fleshing out chapter one of Petrified Girlfriend (only available in the impossible-to-read-titled Oak & Linden – I’ll make an Etsy page or something when I move to Vermont if you’re interested in a copy, Blogiverse). You may recall that Caitlin and I stomped around the Museum of Natural History taking reference pictures for it. Well, a pivotal moment occurs in the Hall of Ocean Life, which has had a wonderful lighting effect ever since it was remodeled sometime this decade. The hall’s skylights, which were painted over in the let’s-paint-over-everything 1960s, are illuminated with the blue, shifting ripples that you see on the sand under the ocean water. It’s gorgeous. And it took me a while to figure out just how to depict it, as you can see. This objet d’art features some coffee stains by me and also one of my collaborator Caitlin Martin’s inimitable lists.