April Bottleship
Ahoy friends!
It's been a busy month for me, what with MoCCA in New York, Comics Camp in Alaska, and now a week at home with my folks in California. (Didn't I say I'd travel less in 2017?) I'm feeling a lot of things, and noticing a lot more. My communities are knitting themselves closer together and working hard to find solutions to the anxiety pervading the world at large. I see more and more people (especially independent creators) talking about money and vulnerability and success. It feels like a huge sea change within a very small and specific corner of the creative universe.
On that note:
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My latest informal podcast episode just went public! I got to talk with Lillian Karabaic of Oh My Dollar, a financial training program for folks with variable income, about the balance of business thinking and creative thinking, how your personal neuroses can impact your attitude towards money, hiring your own boss, and more. (If you like these conversations, you can find more of them on Patreon at the $10 tier.)
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I'll be appearing at Berkeley's own Tr!ckster Gallery for a Free Comic Book Day signing on Saturday, May 6th from 1-4pm. There'll be cookies and tea and also TOTALLY FREE giveaway copies of my new scientific travelogue comic about crossing the Pacific on an oceanographic research vessel! Whaaaaa! (If you can't make the signing, you can also preorder a copy—still free—right here, or grab a PDF.)
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I got to see the Northern Lights for the first time while I was in Alaska, which got me thinking a lot about awe what it does to/for us. Turns out there's an NYT article about that very thing. Thanks to Tony Cliff for actually managing to get a halfway decent photo.
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I fell in love at first sight with Manjula Martin's email dispatches this week. Here's her three cents on money, creative work, and love. (Thanks to Austin Kleon's newsletter for bringing her to my attention.)
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The 100 Day Project is well underway, and I've been cranking through a lot of stuff on the #100DemonDialogues hashtag. (Yes, for those who have asked, these will be a book when this is all over!) There's a lot to consider in how we talk to these parts of ourselves. I'm enjoying the act of parsing through it all a day at a time.
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If you need more things to listen to, this episode of Friendshipping is so pure and good. I resonated so much with the idea of friends not finding anything bad to say about you, and what that might mean for who you are as a person.
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From Linda Holmes at NPR, "...not every expression of gratitude arrives on paper, which you can keep with you, pinned to your life indefinitely. Some thank-you's arrive written on rocks, and if you feel obligated to carry all of those rocks everywhere you go for the rest of your life, if you can't learn to look at them, be grateful for them, and set them down, even they become a lot to carry." I received an unexpected thank-you email recently (one I would classify as being written on paper), and I was struck by how good it made me feel. I want to give easy joy that more often. How do you thank people?
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Finally, I leave you with these singing Norwegian sailors. Because this is, after all, a nautical newsletter.
Love and boats and comics,
Lucy
P.S.
If you enjoy these dispatches and want to help me make more things, buy a book or leave a review on Powell's, Amazon, or Goodreads—it means the world to me <3