Issue 37: An Exciting Announcement!
A very exciting announcement, plus some new art!
Hello hello, friends and good folk!
Damn, is it hot! You’d think someone who grew up mostly in the Southeast of the US would be better accustomed to the heat and humidity, but alas, I am not lol. I was born to live amongst penguins, not flamingos.
Apologies in advance for the brevity of this newsletter— it has been a hectic couple of weeks since I last wrote you, and I’m very happy to say I can now share part of that good news I hinted at last newsletter:
A VERY HAPPY ANNOUNCEMENT
I’m extremely pleased to say that I’m now represented by the very lovely Jennifer Azantian, of Azantian Literary Agency!
After three-ish weeks straight of emailing, querying, and interviewing agents, my brain has turned to complete mush, but it was totally worth it! I’m super glad to have started this relationship with Jen and her Azantian Lit Agency. I’m a big fan of many of the illustrators ALA represents (many of whom are also Cartoonist Co-op members!), and I’m looking forward to working with everyone on the team there. They’ve already been so kind and welcoming!
I’m also very grateful to all my lovely friends who generously shared their time and experiences with me about their own agents to help me make this decision. It was invaluable to helping me understand what exactly I wanted and needed in an agent, and I’m so thankful for your help, friends 💖
So! Moving forward, if anyone is interested in working with me on a project, you’re welcome to get in touch with Jen to get the discussion started! 😃
CHECK OUT ALA’S OTHER COOL ARTISTS—>
IN THE STUDIO - ART FIGHT EDITION!
The Co-op Art Fight Raids have been so fun! With all the final interviews I was doing alongside a bunch of extra events for Summer Camp, I only had time to participate in one for the first week, but I’m pleased with what I was able to make in just a few days. I learned how to make things glow in Procreate, which I’m already itching to put to work in other pieces now, too.
This character, Max Arden, was designed by the very sweet SpoopySamuel, who has some cute characters! I enjoyed working on this one, especially with the interesting background details he shared about Max. One of those details was about “searching for the right spell to bring his deceased boyfriend back to life,” so of course I had to illustrate the two of them together!
I’ve also been working on the opening pages of Burden, and I’m happy to share this look at the pencils for the front interior cover:
Man, perspective was really kicking my ass on this one lol. I haven’t really included a lot of architecture in my work before, so I’m getting a lot of practice out of this ha ha. I also had to figure out what style I want to draw the houses in pretty quickly, too, because if I’m being honest, most of my houses usually look like the stick figure version of a house! 😂
I’m looking forward to the coloring and toning of this work later to really set the mood!!
JULY EVENTS + ONGOINGS
We’ve entered the third week of Summer Camp with the Cartoonist Co-op, and I’m having such a great time with everyone! I know say this all the time, but we really do have such a wonderful group of people in the Cooperative, and it’s been an absolute delight to get to know some of our regular campers even more!
Adrian Alvarez and I had a good time hosting the “Mini” Co-op Orientation that turned out to be anything but mini lol. We learned a helpful trick for figuring out the timing of future events— estimate about 1 minute per slide on your slide show to give you a rough idea of how long your presentation will be.
Luckily, we only went over by about 30 minutes, but most everyone seemed to find the orientation helpful, which made me very happy!
I’ve also enjoyed some of our other events as an attendee, as well! Poetry Comics Workshop I by Luke Mars had some fun generative exercises in it (something I love getting in a workshop), and Toning Your Art to Match the Tone of Your Story by Jey Pawlik was full of great insights on approaching tone in comics! I’m excited to put what I learned in there to use in Burden especially.
All our Summer Camp events are free for Co-op members and volunteers, and we’re also recording a lot of these to store in our private library, so if you make comics or love them and want to support their creators, consider joining us today! 😃
RECENT READS + FAVORITES
Apologies for this newsletter being so short! Time truly got away from me this issue, but I hope you still enjoyed some looks at what’s going on! I’m glad I was still able to squeeze in some time for some comics, too 😄
And here are some of my favorite things from the past few weeks:
Eating: Black forest cake (we got some from this great place in Brooklyn called Mia’s to celebrate me signing with Jen!)
Watching: Sinners (2025) and K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025)
Doing: Working on Burden and hosting Summer Camp with my friends!
How about you? What have been some of your favorite things lately?
Hope this week is kind to you 💖 Thanks for reading!
