Hello, friends!

Baby-sitters Club Super Special #1: Baby-sitters on Board! is in bookstores, and I have returned and rested after a very exciting tour. If I saw you out there: thank you for coming, it was a blast!!

It’s been a decade, somehow, since I started working on my first book.¹

Ten years of drafts, ten years of school visits, ten years grateful for every page and hoping that I can keep it going for another year and another after that. One thing that I try to do with every book is give myself a Craft Question: something to work towards.

For Freestyle, the question was: how can I communicate motion in a way that feels exciting on the page?

For Fresh Start, I asked: can I bring that visual excitement to my protagonist’s interior world? ²

When I signed on to revisit the Baby-sitters Club, for the first time in years, I wasn’t entirely sure what my next question should be.³

Fortunately, I had a clear starting point: this was my first time working with a co-creator.

I’ve always admired Raina’s approach to the craft, and I loved having the opportunity to be in the room (so to speak) watching as she built her pages from the ground up. You know how people who have practiced a sport for years can make it look so fun and effortless? Comics can be like that.⁴ It’s easy to forget how much work happens before that one perfect, final line that communicates everything.

I have a tendency to go big and kinetic and splashy, adding extra panels to be sure you understand what I’m going for. It works! I’m proud of everything I’ve done! But are there moments where I could be more intentional? Where I could make space for my perfect line?

On reflection, that’s been how I approach school visits as well. “If I perform a fast-paced presentation full of exciting visuals, you will remember me!”⁵

But having the chance to make something new with Raina, finding a format that felt right for the two of us and seeing how it landed with kids, was such a wonderful reminder that just because one thing works doesn’t mean it’s the only option - that maybe you’ll still be interested if I take a breath and say something sincere alongside all the fun stuff.

Working on this book gave me a new way to reflect on how I make comics and how I talk about them: what choices am I making out of habit or fear?

I’ll keep doing my best to mix it up.

Items of note:

• We’re a #1 NYT bestseller, babey!

• I think I’m all out of public appearances for the year, but you can find me on Episode 3 of Generation: Baby-sitters Club!

• Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter! There are now enough of you that I have to pay Buttondown (I am genuinely delighted, they’ve been stellar). Please look forward to slightly-more-regular missives as I endeavor to get my money’s worth.

• If you like buying books for people for the holidays (I do!), I have heard that it helps to start early. It’s a weird time for printing books, stocking books, shipping things, etc. If your favorite local bookstore doesn’t have what you’re looking for, ask them to order it in!!

• Do you need to decompress for a few minutes? Consider Puzzmo! They’re celebrating their third anniversary. Not only do they run delightful crosswords (which recently included a BSC clue, bless them), but they’ve also got Ribbit: a standout game with cute little frogs. You can’t go wrong. (“Hey, Gale, I’m on Puzzmo! What’s your username?” I’ve got you, friend.)

Yours in comics,

Gale