Finally managed to get the ‘Mose Goes Walkies’ website up and running. I’m not sure where this new venture is going, but I felt it was different enough from my usual work that it needed its own web presence. For those that are just joining us, I’ve been drawing a daily comic strip since May 31st of this year, with the goal of perhaps someday publishing these cartoons in some form in the future. At this point (I’m nearing 100 strips very soon) I consider it ‘on the job training’, learning to be a better cartoonist, expressing myself, fulfilling a lifelong ambition, call it what you will. There are links on the website to our Instagram account, our Patreon page, and several sample strips to peruse. The link in the menubar above will take you to the official website.
The strip above is one I’ve done early for next Sunday, as I’ll be away at a music festival this weekend.
I’ve created a Patreon Page for “Mose Goes Walkies” as a way of supporting my cartooning habit. Ever since I was 10 years old, I’ve wanted to be a cartoonist. I’ve compromised over the years, working as a graphic artist, then as an illustrator for more than 3 decades, but as I’ve only got five more working years (give or take) left in me, I’ve decided to pour a lot more energy into achieving this goal. I am still very new to this, and hope to improve with repetition.
I’d like to reassure my illustration clients, that I am still accepting commissions and will be giving 100% of my energy and creativity to whatever future projects come my way, however you will be seeing a lot more of Mose around here.
Wanted to spend the day drawing comics, and I probably should have been working on the John Muir Trail project, but had an vague idea for something else and decided to run it down and see where it went.
On Saturday evening, after a Kent Philharmonic Orchestra concert (with whom I play in the bass section), I had a chance encounter with a former client whom I hadn’t seen in probably 33 years (I’ve done work for his company more recently, but with other designers), and was flattered to discover that he is a reader of this blog, and he had asked about the status of the ‘John Muir’ book I was working on. It was a nice uplifting jolt to my self esteem, and I want to thank him for taking time out to say hi.
Back in the spring of 2018, I was contacted by the Art Director of First Second Books (a division of MacMillan), about the possibility of my illustrating a graphic novel adaptation of a book by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner called ‘What Unites Us’. I hadn’t worked for this publisher before, but apparently they had seen some of my previous work and thought I’d be a good fit for this project. I had very little experience with graphic novels or comics, but I had worked on a short Babe Ruth non-fiction comic (‘The Bambino’) for Capstone, and I’d done a few comics adaptations of memoirs for a friend’s website (‘Freaks of Nurture’), and samples from both are attached below.
What Unites Us, 2021
I drew a few sample pages that summer in a style I thought might work. Early on, I had the idea of doing the entire book in red, white and blue (commenting on the current climate of divisiveness, with ‘red states’ and ‘blue states’, and the way the colors combine to form our flag), and the original sample pages reflected that concept. The sample pages went through an editing phase and were revised, and by the end of the year, I was offered a contract and advance to complete the project.
‘The Bambino’, Capstone Press, 2011
It was a daunting task. The original book that I was adapting was over 300 pages, and I’d never done anything of this scope before in my career. I was given a copy of the book, and then a highlighted pdf with vague suggestions of where the editors thought I might make cuts and simplify, but other than that, I dove into the pagination and thumbnail sketches the spring and summer of 2019 with a feeling not unlike terror. A few months after the editors received a copy of the layout I had created, I was given the go-ahead to start work on the finished product. I started work on the finished pages in June of 2019, and was done by November (with a month long break to hike the John Muir Trail in August).
Freaks of Nurture, 2009
‘What Unites Us’, 2021
The edits and revisions took place mostly in the early months of 2020, but then the pandemic hit, and the publication date was pushed back. I’m happy to announce that the book will finally be hitting the shelves and available for purchase on March 9 of this year, in only a few weeks’ time. Here’s a link to a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, and also a preview link at the ComicsBeat website. Also, here’s a link to where you can purchase it on Amazon.
Very proud to be involved in this special project from First Second Comics. World Citizen Comics was launched this week with the publishing of ‘UNRIG: How to Fix Our Broken Democracy’ by Dan Newman and George O’Connor. Be sure and head over to their website for more information and updates on this essential series for these divisive times. According to Amazon, the title I was involved with, “What Unites Us” should hit the shelves in February of 2021.
