ALWAYS POSTED A WEEK EARLIER ON PATREON

Podcast Updates

On Tuesday I was excited to have on the show, the award-winning and internationally celebrated Children’s book author and illustrator, Arthur Strangekin!  I did not realize when I booked him to appear that he lived in South Africa, so it was 2 am for him when the show went live. 

We have some funny banter after the end bumper music regarding it.

Project Updates

I worked more on my dad joke book formatting.  Still trying to make sure specific jokes (if applicable) correspond to the border illustrations that most pertain to the joke’s subject.

I also was happy to have the basic outline of my Christmas – themed picture book roughed out.  I also started experimenting with different brush types on procreate to determine the best fit for the book.

I also started to make some pages for my ‘Exclamations’ book. 

It was a full week of making small progress on multiple projects.

What I’m reading

This past week I read ‘Aster and the Accidental Magic’ by Thom Pico and Karensac.  What a fun book.  Thom and Karensac created a great world for the protagonist, Aster to explore.  I really love this type of youth-oriented graphic novel genre that has characters interacting with their day-to-day magical surroundings.

It is exciting to see the writer and the artist world build together and seemingly work so well as to play on each other’s creative strengths.

I cannot help but make comparisons to the Netflix series “Hilda”.  Both IPs follow a girl in a valley town surrounded by supernatural events that are accepted as normal by the human world as they banally co-exist with it.

What I like about the beginnings of this Aster series is that she is easily relatable as the main character.  She is forced to interact with the environment, establishing her first as a reluctant onlooker which slowly evolves into active participation with the story.

I am looking forward to reading the next installment of their series.

Personal Updates

This past week up here in Vermont we have started to finally see a decline in Omicron case counts which is a bit of relief. I am optimistic that we are getting near the end of this (almost 3 years) rollercoaster of societal anxiety and uncertainty regarding the pandemic.

In our family, we have had a bit of a long journey of uncertainty since we have an 18-month-old who is not eligible for a vaccine.

As daylight goes, as of this writing, we have 52 extra minutes of daylight compared to our darkest day of the year, December 21st.  it may be the coldest time of the year, at least it is getting brighter.