Issue 39: Comic Pages, Future Plans, Events, and More!
Exploring tone, lettering, and ideas!
Hello hello, friends and good folk!
Hope you’re all doing well and staying cool (or warm) wherever you are in our world! 💖
Just a heads up here at the top that today’s In the Studio section will be sharing some NSFW, horror-fantasy content of a woman in labor in case you need to skip over that section.
I was excited to get news that I am officially listed up on the Azantian Literary Agency’s website!! Ahhh, this is so exciting! Thank you so much to everyone’s congratulations and good wishes, I appreciate you very much! 💖 I’m grateful to be surrounded by so many kind and encouraging people 🥰
Oh, I’ve also decided to add a new section to the newsletter called “On a Personal Note”— I saw it in a quilter’s newsletter I read and thought, “Well, now, if that isn’t a great idea!” I’ll use that space to occasionally share some less work-type things, like my sewing projects or maybe some favorite recipes and such from time to time!
FUTURE PLANNING!
So! I’ve been thinking about things I’d like to do with the shop once I resolve the tech issue I’m having with it, and I’ve been considering doing some collections on a seasonal basis. Come September, I’m thinking I’d like to start designing a few things for 2026, and I’m hoping to hear from you about your thoughts!
My hope is to create small batches of items that are specific to your interests in an effort to provide you with a wider variety of options while also minimizing waste and keeping this work sustainable. I especially like the idea of doing preorders, but I’m curious what y’all think about them 👀
I also really like how some shops I follow utilize collections of items designed around a central theme, too, and I’ve been daydreaming about making a Halloween collection with a central piece (maybe a pumpkin-gardening witch? 🎃) as an art print, along with a few stickers or a printable garland with elements of that illustration.
Another idea I keep coming back to is a spring collection around the theme of fat, disabled, queer fairies ✨ I could see maybe making a sticker sheet with different species of flower fairies, along with a limited amount of notepads or perhaps a calendar for preorder with each month featuring a different fairy.
I’m curious what your thoughts are! What do you think? Do you like collections like these examples? Do you like preorders as a practice or nah? 👀 Let me know!
IN THE STUDIO
I’m loving working on the pencils/inks for my comic Burden when I get the time while working on another project I can’t talk about yet! (But hopefully soon 👀)
The line art is in pink for now because that’s currently my favorite color to work in, but it’ll all be blue later. (Cue the Sleeping Beauty fairies meme: “Make it blue!”)
I enjoyed hand lettering the effect for this next spread (lol unintentional pun there). It’s a delightfully disgusting one, and I wanted to give a gross, wet-feeling texture to the letters.
I did this by using a brush called Salamanca to write the initial letters, then going over those shapes on a new layer and adding some drips here and there to create the final form of them, like so:
I’ve been trying to improve my lettering, and I keep coming back to one of my favorite letterers as inspiration to play with it: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou! His website doesn’t contain any examples of his work (🥲), so I linked to a page on Thought Bubble that has a great example!
I’ve also been inspired by my friend Jey Pawlik‘s wonderful event Toning Your Art to Match the Tone of Your Story and have been slowly swatching all of my brushes in Procreate to see which ones I want to use to eventually add tone to Burden. It’s been very fun, and I’m already loving how many brushes I have with some great texture!
Jey’s event is a great one and doesn’t require being a member to watch it, so if you like learning about craft-related subjects as much as I do, I think you’ll enjoy this, even if you don’t make art yourself!
IN THE SHOP
Despite the news last time, my comics still seem to be available for now on itch! And I promise this isn’t a fear-based marketing tactic when I say this, but I genuinely don’t know if/when itch might catch wind of my work and take it down, and with my own shop still waiting for some attention from me, this is the only spot to get my comics at the moment!
So if you’d like to get a copy of any of these for yourself, please keep that in mind. I’m working to find time soon to get my website’s issue fixed, but I have a lot on my plate this month and may not be able to get to it for a lil while longer. (And even then, it’ll still be a risk with Stripe as my payment processor 😅)
AUGUST EVENTS + ONGOINGS
Just a reminder that on August 21, I’ll be presenting Alt Text for Comics for Co-op members live at 7 PM Eastern Time! If you’ve ever wondered how to create and add alt text to your work, come on by, and I’ll help you figure out how to get started! We’ll be taking a look at some examples and doing some in-session exercises together to help you get a lil momentum going, too.
I’ll also be hosting three more events as we wrap up our amazing Summer Camp experience:
NIF 2026 Info Session: We’ll be talking about how Co-op members can submit their work and/or get involved with planning our second round of NIF! (August 24)
Time to Make Your Comic!: We’re still meeting weekly on Mondays (Eastern Time) to make our comics to music together and then cheer each other on after! (August 18 and 25)
Summer Camp Closing + Award Ceremonies: We’re gonna get together for a chill hangout where we share the art we made these nine weeks, talk about our favorite moments, and give out our special prize for those who participated in Summer Camp this year! 💖 (August 31)
Make comics yourself and want to join in these last couple of weeks of fun? Join us in the Co-op! We accept folks at any skill level and experience!
COMMUNITY FEATURE
We Need Diverse Books has a program called Magic Stories Are for Everyone, where they send a bookish care package to trans and queer kids via indie bookstores, which I think is just amazing!
I often reflect on how much different my life would have been if I had had access as a kid to the language needed to understand who I am as a disabled, queer, trans person; I do know, though, how much it still means to me today to see myself reflected in so much more media than ever before, especially in indie spaces.
I can only imagine what kids these days who DO have access to that media and information are going through as they watch it— along with all their gender-affirming healthcare and human rights— get ripped to shreds.
Projects like these must feel like a lifeline to some:
Any donation amount is accepted, and their website says that every $15 provides a care package to a young reader and that your support helps them:
“Donate a special magical edition of our bookish care packages to trans, nonbinary, and queer kids. Each package will include a diverse magical book, fun swag items, and an art card with a link to our new Messages of Hope page to show recipients that they are not alone.
Provide grants to aspiring trans and nonbinary creators to aid them on their publishing journeys.
Host virtual workshops for aspiring trans and nonbinary creators to guide them on how to get published and hone their manuscripts”
And if you’re a published author or illustrator of any kids’ books, they also have an option for you to submit a message of hope, which I also love!
If you’ve got the ability and inclination, I would love for you to join me in donating to this awesome project! 💖
DONATE TO MAGIC STORIES ARE FOR EVERYONE —>
ON A PERSONAL NOTE
If you’re new here, you may not know that I also sew! It’s been a really busy couple of months, so I haven’t gotten to work on the small mountain of projects I have lined up for a bit— until recently, that is!
I whipped up this cute lil patchwork zipper pouch for keeping my scrappy EPP stars in as I work on them. It looks and feels a lot nicer than the plastic ziploc bag I had previously resorted to using lol The fabrics are so soft, and I pieced together a bunch of batting scraps I had to quilt to the outer panels, so it’s just so deliciously soft when you touch it.
I used a nice gold yellow thread for a tiny bit of hand quilting, and I love the extra bit of warmth it adds to the patchwork.
I really love these colors and the whole collection’s designs all together. It feels especially nice for a late summer palette as we slowly inch toward fall 🍂 Also pretty pleased that this used up nearly the entire mini charm pack I bought for this project! It used all but two squares, which I am more than happy to add those remaining ones to my scrappy stars.
Do you sew or do any kind of textile art or needlework? 👀
RECENT READS + FAVORITES
I lucked out on the last day of July— I remembered just in the nick of time that there was a cool new digital comics fair (now closed, but I’m linking it anyway for remembering next year) called LDC Fair. They had an interesting selection (which are included in today’s issue), and I look forward to seeing more from them next year! 👀
And here are some of my favorite things from the past few weeks:
Eating: brie and ciabatta rolls
Watching: Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) and The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball (2025)
Experiencing: My first time getting original art from another artist, especially one of my favorite artists: Raahat Kaduji! What an amazing experience to hold an original piece of art that a living, breathing human has created with their own hands! I genuinely got teary-eyed 🥹
How about you? What have been some of your favorite things lately?
Hope this week is kind to you 💖 Thanks for reading!
