Hey there, folks! Welcome back to the June edition of my newsletter. I hope everyone’s been having a nice summer so far! It sure has been nice to finally get a bit of rain.

“COLORING” INOSCULARUM

At the end of last month, I finally finished inking Inoscularum no. 1! I’m now in the process of adding marker tones to the backgrounds and characters. Do you call that “coloring” when it’s being printed in grayscale? Whatever it’s called, it’s nice to flesh everything out and see it all looking a bit more finished.

MAKE A TERRIBLE COMIC DAY

June 24th was Make A Terrible Comic Day! You can read about the reasons why this day exists here, but basically by making something intentionally terrible, you get to practice making comics without any stakes or pressure. I always love making and reading the comics that come out of Make A Terrible Comic Day. Here’s my terrible comic from this year:

Here’s my terrible comic from last year:

I’m really of the mind that making low-stakes art helps you get better at making “high stakes” art, because the only way to actually get better at doing something is to do it. While everything I make matters to me, it’s all kind of just practice for the next thing I make!

SOME LIL’ COMICS

Speaking of low-stakes art, here are two excerpts from a mini-project I started this month called “Chodefinger: A Garden Story.”

It’s a comic about how I got some kind of insect sting on my ring finger, then my finger got all huge, my wedding ring started cutting off my circulation, and a bunch of wacky misadventures ensued as we tried to figure out what to do. My plan was to make a cover for it that would be a parody of this Goldfinger poster:

But I don’t know, partway through making the comic I just started feeling like it wasn’t that funny or interesting of a story and put the whole thing aside. I had fun drawing all of the silly faces and situations, but at a certain point making diary-style comics kind of feels like telling someone about a dream you had! Everything I’ve drawn of it so far is here, and I might finish it one day if I feel inspired to do so.

OTHER STUFF!

June’s critter of the month is the Luna Moth! Just this week, I was taking out the trash at work when I found a luna moth with a torn wing on the ground. I scooped it up and took it over to a little pond behind the warehouse where I work, thinking it would be good to get it closer to some water and potential food, but as it turns out, adult luna moths don’t even have mouthparts! They do all of their eating before they enter their cocoons. Their adulthood only lasts for about a week, where they pretty much just mate and die.

SONG OF THE MONTH!

June’s song of the month is Count The Ways by The Last Dinner Party! I don’t really know much of anything about music these days, but I kind of just stumbled onto this group. They’re neat!

END OF JUNE NEWSLETTER

Well, that’s it for this month’s newsletter. Something pretty important is going to happen next Saturday, on the 4th day of next month. A pretty big anniversary. that’s right, it’s about to be…

COOPER’S 12th BIRTHDAY!! <3 <3 <3 \(^_^)/

And nothing else.

Cooper requests you celebrate his birthday with no fireworks, because he is a skittish old boy.

I hope this month, you’ll take some time to step outside and not just look at the moon, but maybe even howl at it. It’s what Cooper would want. The next full moon is… tomorrow!