October Bottleship
Fall is here, Ships and Bottles!
First off: if you'd like to see me in person, you've got one more chance in 2016. I'll be at the Thought Bubble Festival in Leeds, England on November 5th and 6th (Table 64 in Royal Armories Hall).
In the meantime: I've been hoarding treats to send to you, so it's time to let loose with the goods.
- Before we get to anything else, did you know HMS Terror, one of two vessels abandoned during the famously doomed Franklin Expedition to the complete Northwest Passage, has been found?! Pretty thrilling stuff. Underwater shipwrecks give me the screaming heebie jeebies, but this is just too cool. (HAH. Cool! Arctic! Ice! Get it? It's a...joke. Oh dear.)
- New Treats: A Life in Objects, my box set compilation of illustrations from The 100 Day Project, is now up for sale, complete with three volumes of art, die-cut covers, gold endpapers, and a really fancy slipcase. I did a big, in-depth post about the making of this unusual object over on my blog, including a video of the slipcase in action. I've never gotten to use so much gold in a single project before. It was delicious.
- Gaby Dunn's new podcast, Bad with Money, is everything I've been missing in my current research on financial stability in the age of being a creator on the internet. She speaks candidly and humorously about the ins and outs of managing money, without shying away from the harsh truth that many of us aren't very good at it. (Full disclosure: both Gaby and I spoke at XOXO this year, so I'm looking forward to sharing her talk—and mine!—when they come out in the next few weeks.)
- I've got a guest post up on the Oliver Hazard Perry website all about my time aboard during this summer's sail training camp. I'm wrapping up the comic about that trip as we speak. More to come on that front soon.
- This article on the loss and recovery of Doves Type, arguably one of the most beautiful typefaces of all time, enthralled me from start to finish. The events read like something out of a Gothic novel, yet they rest squarely in history. This is why it's so hard to write fiction.
- Speaking of type, my pal Glenn Fleishman (a typesetter-turned-journalist) is writing a newsletter through Patreon called The Printer's Devil. It's intense, deeply specific, and totally fascinating. I'd never heard of a pantograph before reading it, but now I'm dying to get my hands on one. (We also collaborated on a post about the origin of ALL CAPS SHOUTING.)
- Baggywrinkles, my all-ages comic of high seas adventure and maritime knowledge, is cropping up in stores everywhere. If you'd like a special, drawn-in hardcover edition, you can order one straight from me—which I'd recommend, because the commercial, softcover edition is going into a second printing and may not be available as quickly!
- (If you've already read it and enjoyed it, would you be willing to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads? Neill Cameron was kind enough to call it "...as potent a distillation as I've ever seen in a comic of the sheer joyous life-altering rush of being in love. (With boats)." What a nice man.)
- I got to paint four massive tall ships this week as part of the final reward packages from last year's Kickstarter campaign. It was a great opportunity to figure out how time-lapse videos work, so you can see me working on all of them reeeeeeally fast. Looking forward to doing more of these in the future.
- A scientist has been putting tiny blindfolds on robins, with surprising results.
- My studiomate Jesse Hamm drops some wisdom in his latest Patreon essay (free to read!) about things he'd like to see more of in comics. I know very few people with as broad and meticulous an understanding of the medium, and I'm glad Jesse's been writing more of this stuff. You can also get his bite-sized wisdom a tweet at a time on Twitter.
- Finally, I leave you with these very important photos of Russian cruise ship cats.
Thanks for reading! I'll see you all in a couple weeks.
Love and boats and comics,
Lucy
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