Lucy Bellwood

Grand Adventure Reviewed on Comics Bulletin

Woke up to a lovely review of Grand Adventure from Mr. Jason Sacks in Comics Bulletin’s small press review column this morning. Here’s an excerpt:

Because she’s so honest with her emotions as the three weeks go by, we don’t just get a set of images about Upper Elves’ Canyon and Tequila Beach in this comic; instead, readers feel part of Lucy’s reactions to the events and see ourselves in her excitement and worry and absolute joy. It’s similar to hearing a smart friend telling a series great stories over lunch about her fantastic times spent immersed in the Grand Canyon’s splendor.

Thanks, Jason! You can read the whole review over here on Comics Bulletin (scroll to the bottom for the review). If you’d like to purchase a copy of Grand Adventure to see what all the fuss is about, you can order a physical one here or a digital one here!

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Talking Kickstarter with ConSequential

If you’re looking for some good audio material for your Thursday afternoon, I recently did an interview with Mr. Dave Convery of the ConSequential podcast all about everyone’s favorite topic: Kickstarter! We discuss the merits and pitfalls of crowdfunding for comics, as well as some other nonsense. In their own words, the episode boasts:

More comics! More jokes! More interviews! More inexplicable digressions about cauliflower. These people got mad brassica love, yo.

So go on, you mustard-mad heathens. Give it a listen.

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Grand Adventure: Print Edition Pre-Orders

GrandPress — Stats: 28 pages, full color, 5.5″ x 7″, $10.

The wait is over! I stopped by ColorHaus this morning to check out the proofs for Grand Adventure, and I can safely say these comics are going to rock your socks off. The printers have done a fantastic job replicating the watercolor and picking out papers that really make the art shine. Couldn’t be happier.

If you haven’t heard, Grand Adventure is my daily diary comic from a three-week rafting trip through the entirety of the Grand Canyon. I recounted the day’s activities each night we were on the river, generally painting the pages before breakfast the following morning. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip, and I’m really happy I decided to document it like this.

I’ll begin shipping copies of the comic November 7th, but you can pre-order one today to beat the rush. Have at ’em!

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Site Overhaul!

Welcome, friends, to my brand new site! After realizing that my former blog theme was no longer supported on WordPress and therefore failing to load images properly, I upgraded to a new theme and have spent the afternoon putting together a more robust and well organized homepage for you all to enjoy.

There are some sections that are still under construction and some kinks that are still getting worked out, so do bear with me as I bumble though, but hopefully the overall experience is much improved.

Since this wouldn’t be a proper blog post without some art, here’s a smattering of doodles from the past week. I’ve been out sick for four days with a killer cold, so this has basically been my M.O. of late:

Then there’s the first wave of backer birds for those of you who were kind enough to support the Cartozia Tales Kickstarter. Thank you!

And a couple portraits from the past month to round things out:

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Grand Adventure: PDF Edition!

Hello loyal readers! Sorry things have been rather quiet around here lately. I’m working on a bunch of projects that I can’t say anything about on the Internet, so there hasn’t been much to discuss. HOWEVER! I’ve just released a new, high-res comic for you on Gumroad, so let’s talk about that.

Grand Adventure, my 29-page diary comic chronicling a rowing trip through the Grand Canyon, is now available in PDF form. I’ve rescanned and cleaned up all the pages and couldn’t be happier with how the colors turned out. There’s a even a couple bonus pages of illustration and comics from our trip prep! $3 bags you the whole package. Check it out here.

To those of you holding out for a print edition, never fear. I’m getting quotes from printers as we speak and should have those ready to roll in mid-November at the latest. I think they’re going to look fabulous. If you prefer to read your comics digitally, though, today’s your lucky day! Proceeds from the PDF edition will help fund the cost of printing all these full-color booklets, so be sure to share this with your digital comics buds.

Enjoy!

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Monday Sketchdump

In honor of completing my story for Cartozia #3 last week, I decided to do a little warm-up sketch of my two protagonists on Sunday. Meet Grumley and Bumley, cantankerous fishermen at large.

I’ve also been trying to get back into the habit of doing warm-up sketches on a more regular basis, so here are some heads, hands, and hounds.

And then just a few assorted figures I’ve been noodling around with. You might recognize John Elliott (one of my favorite folk musicians at the moment) and Dan Weber (only one B, ignore that note), who played a great gig at Al’s Den a few months ago in Portland. There’s also a dress from the fantastic OMG That Dress tumblr. And me as a pretentious art critic, for reasons unknown.

ALL ART ALL THE TIME. WOO.

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Friday Listening: A Happy Go Lucky Podcast

I had the immense pleasure of returning to the Happy Go Lucky Podcast this week to talk about my time away in the Grand Canyon. Our theme was “Escape” which led to a lot of talk about how we can create space for making things in our day-to-day routine without running away to the woods. Or maybe you’ve gotta run away to the woods. Or Ireland. There are lots of options on the table.

Anyway, tune in here for an hour of titillating discussion about the creative process and, as always, boats.

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Kevin’s Catch — Sneak Peek

Just finished a mad dash to finish line on my latest story for Cartozia Tales. Did I mention WE MET OUR KICKSTARTER GOAL? Holy cow, Internet. You really pulled through on that one and I’m so incredibly grateful. Thanks to all of you who helped spread the word and raise us over our massive goal. You’re all great.

Of course this means that I get to work on this series for an entire year! I can’t wait to see where it goes. Anyway, this is a small smattering of panels from Kevin’s Catch, which will appear in Cartozia #3.
Want to be the first to get your hands on a copy? You can subscribe right now! Otherwise I’ll be posting a link when the issue goes live.

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Grand Adventure — Part 3

Here it is, friends: the final installment of Canyon Comics! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading along and experiencing the adventure secondhand — it’s been great to share it all with you. You can now find the whole thing in sequence on the Other Comics page for easy access.

I’ll be rescanning all these pages on the fancy new watercolor scanner at Periscope in the next few weeks so the print edition will really shine. I’m looking forward to making some quality full-color minis for you all.

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Grand Adventure — Part 2

More comics! For you! Here’s the second installment of pages from my Grand Canyon trip last month, covering the Adventure with the Flash Flood and our run through Lava Falls. The last batch of pages will go up on Wednesday due to a Leaving My Sketchbook at Home Like an Idiot error.

For the many of you who have asked about a print edition, never fear. Your wild cries have been heard and I’ll be putting one together before the end of October. Thanks for convincing me to make ’em!