Year 1 of Comic Book School: That's a Wrap

                April 30, 2024

            Year 1 of Comic Book School: That's a Wrap

                more art coming soon! 

            I can’t draw right now because I injured my hand doing too much of that, so this is going to be mostly words! (More comics are coming SO soon, I have a bunch of posts queued up!) Also, were you wondering why my substack went quiet for so long? WELL—
Within the past four months I:
inked a 12 page manga (coming soon!)
wrote an entire graphic novel script
researched and drafted a 20 page nonfiction comic about the history of baby food and the neurobiology of oral-motor development (coming eventually)
wrote, drew, painted, and published a 12-page, fully watercolored original middle grade mini-comic (coming soon!)
tabled at Luna Moth Zine Fest in Salem, NH
completed (nearly) 60 hours of an internship as a teaching assistant for Shay Mirk’s Memoir Comics class
printed and assembled four hundred and thirty (430!!) mini-comics (215 each of this one and this one) as the featured artist in March for Shay’s Zine of the Month Club
met with and did a portfolio review with representatives from the comics publishing industry at Industry Day, came through unscathed
coordinated and hosted a weekly Soup Night, this term featuring a rotating cast of guest chefs!
worked 10-20 hours per week as a nanny to a joyful, curious, intense 3-year-old (soooo many baking-soda-and-vinegar volcanoes and obstacle courses)
attended school full-time, somehow? 
read **checks list** 24(!!) books
preemptively wrecked my Spotify Wrapped for the year by listening almost exclusively to three musicals on repeat (Epic, Hadestown, and Come From Away, in case you were wondering)
joined a knitting group at my local public library where I am the youngest by two decades
folded two and a half dozen kite paper window stars
participated in sugaring! aka tapping sugar maples for sap and processing it to make maple syrup. Very Vermont
saw a solar eclipse at 98% totality
Okay as a treat for reading all of those words, here are a few random visual odds and ends:
the kid I nanny wrote my name for the first time so of course it’s on my door 🥲 
I (kind of) did Hourly Comics Day in February and this is my favorite one of the batch
April in Vermont
kite paper window stars
there was about a month there where making these every day was what was carrying my mental health, bless
Goose!!!!!!!!!
also Goose, hindering my ability to do my homework
the cardigan I have been knitting for three years is aLMOST DONE
a page of research notes about Iceland
getting ready to assemble all the zines for Shay’s Zine of the Month Club
This is what went out in the mail to all the Zine of the Month Club members!
tabling at Luna Moth Zine Fest
my contribution to Luna Moth’s collaborative zine project
I can’t explain it but sugaring work was very Gender™️
scored some sourdough starter from a friend and got back into making my signature sourdough pumpkin cinnamon rolls (they’re so good you guys)
if you have suggestions for more simple science experiments I can do with a 3-year-old, PLEASE send them my way, I am running out
my favorite solar eclipse thing was waving a colander around and watching the round holes in the shadow get progressively more crescent-shaped
things have finally thawed and that means it’s SALAMANDER CATCHING SEASON (this is my housemate Ollie, who just caught their first-ever salamander!)
the rough draft of my nonfiction comic about baby food is two and a half Maias long. (It’s a vertical scroll comic for the web, which is why it’s…. like this.)
I made comics! This is my final project — I’ll share the whole thing soon :)
featuring these two angry babies ((I love them))
for my Survey of the Drawn Story class, I interviewed a few of my classmates for my final project (a magazine spread about comics craft & practice)
More comics coming your way very soon :) Thanks for stickin’ it out with me. I am making millenial heart hands at you.

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