April Round-Up

Woof, where did April go?!

A nasty flu has taken me out for half of the month, and I’ve knuckled down to finish my current project and next comic, MOTHER, which I’ve just wrapped up on colouring! She’s sitting at a chunky 96 pages, cover to cover.

As you can probably garner from the above, I haven’t left the house or seen other humans nearly as much as I’d have liked, so it was a real treat to foray into the real world and visit Art Hole’s launch party for their new space. A great night of art and music and general joy all around. I always think we're very lucky in Cardiff to have such a wonderufl creative community; Everyone participated in a collaborative mural too; I snapped a pic, but you'll have to visit yourself to see the full thing!

Collaborative mural at Art Hole, Cardiff.

I’ll be leaving the house again pretty soon (what a treat!) for Fine Lines Festival on May 10th in Cheltenham. See you there, maybe?

I'll be at Fine Lines on May 10th!

This month...

As mentioned above (and in previous months), MOTHER has once again been the centre of my attention. I’ve coloured about 90 pages of comics this month, which has been intense, but it’s finally done! I'm excited to have some creative playtime on my hands for a little while now.

"Sylvie is a loser, and a lonely one at that. When a patch of mould begins to grow on her body, she decides to raise it as her own child. Meanwhile, the mould spores start a cult, and when a jealous feud between self-proclaimed leader Stachybotrys and genuine chosen one, Mucor, breaks out, Sylvie spirals from motherhood into something else entirely..."

Last month I showed you the full cover; This month, I’d like to introduce you to our main cast of characters; Sylvie, Stachybotrys, and Mucor.

Selfish, pathetic, and longing to be worshipped, Sylvie becomes the mother to the mould spores. Can she resist the power that comes with her new position?

Neurotic, controlling, and desperate to be coddled; He is the self-proclaimed leader of the mould colony and blindly in love with Sylvie.

Headstrong, dramatic, and oh so very cute, Mucor is one of many in the mould colony, and the chosen one, Sylvie's favourite child.

MOTHER will release digitally in July as part of the Laydeez Do Comics Online Fair.

A print run will debut at Thought Bubble in November.

I’ll be dropping some full-page sneak peaks soon on BlueSky, so make sure you’re following if you want to see those!

Sketchbook

My sketchbook has felt very functional this month; I haven’t had a massive amount of creative fun time on my hands, but I do really like the work I’ve done here and I’m feeling confident on paper. A lot of what I've made is kind of ugly product planning and feeling some stuff out for my next comic (can't stay away from the grindset, lol). Here are my favourite spreads from April.

A6 slim notebook from JBLeather (Etsy), Pilot V-Ball 0.7, Tombow HB Pencil, Noor-I-Kor Graphite Stick.

A5 slim notebook from JBLeather (Etsy), Pilot V-Ball 0.7, Tombow HB Pencil, Noor-I-Kor Graphite Stick.

Daily Drawings:

Ohmygod April was rough. I was all over the place for the first half of this month, often scrambling to do my daily drawings last-second. Things got easier in the second half though, when I was not riddled with flu. This challenge is really testing my resilience, in a good way.

Journal Comic

Another one from the sketchbook:

Things I read/saw/enjoyed...

The Shit Witch bu Lis Xu: Oh, this is so much fun! Lovely, soft, dreamy, textural artwork, completely offset by a loud, playful, energetic story and dialogue. This one left me with a good chuckle, and the warm fuzzies too.

Lindsey Cheng Dates A White Boy!!! by Asia Miller: Really getting some fun comics in this month. Miller's work always gets me feeling nostalgic for an American college 2010s vibe that I (a vaguely sheltered British tween at the time), never experienced myself. The entire cast of characters feel so real, and there's a great use of lettering throughout.

Boy Island by Leo Fox: Complicated and simple all at the same time, a trans fable that pops back up in your brain and makes you think when you're least expecting it. I haven't pondered a book in this for a while. Chaotic and full of pathos.

Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam (And Other Stories) by Simon Hanselmann (re-read): A re-read, I think my 5th one, now. This was the book that got me back into comics as an adult way back when, and I like to revisit it every now and then. The volatile swings between effervesence and self-destruction continue to be a train wreck I can't look away from, and knowing where things are headed just make it all the better.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki: Still reading this, almost there now. I'm in love with the visceral, horny descriptions of everything in this book. Yum.

Mass Effect Trilogy: My partner has been playing through all of Mass Effect, so I've been watching that instead of TV this month. Sci-Fi is normally a genre I find tricky to get into because it’s often all so grand, but ME pays attention to the small, mundane stuff in such a wonderful way. My favourite part is hanging out in the Citadel and just listening to the radio news, advertisements, conversations. And that little conversation about toothbrushes at the start of ME3!!! Gimme gimme gimme.

Salute 52: I ventured to London to help my friends at Crow Industries in their demo booth at Salute (Thought Bubble for tabletop games). A different crowd to my usual fare, but pretty cool! Obligatory check out Crow Industires if you like mechs and scrappy little skirmish games, they're very good.

Looking Back...

Almost 6 years ago to the day, I finished work on SWIM. It was my final major project at university, and my longest comic to date at the time (32 pages). To say that this project was (and still is) my baby would be an understatement. I've been thinking about this comic a lot, lately. Since I made it, I've worked on a lot of other projects of varying scopes. Each time though, I've returned to the process I started here.

I like to fully involve myself in a comic as much as possible. The setting for SWIM was inspired by Bristol South Swimming Pool - My friend was taking evening scuba diving classes, so I got to hang out there a lot, just sitting and taking it all in, thinking about comics and processing whatever I had going on internally (a lot of impostor syndrome, I think) that drove the plot of the overall story. I filled an A4 envelope with scrappy drawings, many of which became the roughs for the panels, spent as much time as I could just sitting with my pencils and tweaking them over and over, until everything was fully formed. I don't think this is particualy profound commentary, but dang, I love making comics!

And that's about it for this month, I think! As always, let me know if you have questions, suggestions for things you'd like me to ramble about, etc.

See you next time!

Abs