The online home of Adventure Cartoonist Lucy Bellwood
I’m so delighted to share this comic today as part of Whatever We Please, The Nib’s collection of comics honoring International Women’s Day. Dance Yourself Clean is a brief meditation on what being a part of the social dance scene here in Portland has done for my sexuality and my sense of self. Read the whole thing here.
(This comic was made possible by the generous support of my patrons on Patreon! If you’d like to see me making more comics, won’t you consider joining them?)
After many long weeks of toil, I’m thrilled to announce that Down to the Seas Again, my travelogue comic from this summer’s trip aboard the Charles W. Morgan, is officially at the press and available for pre-order and PDF download! Pre-ordered print editions will begin shipping September 22nd. They’re 20 pages, full color, and (if I do say so myself) totally gorgeous. Colorhaus did a fantastic job on the printing and I can’t wait to start getting them into your hands.
If you’re attending the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD this weekend, you can catch the official print debut and pick one up in person at Table C14, or you can find me at Rose City Comic Con next week with additional copies!
You can also get more of a behind-the-scenes experience by pledging as little as $1 a month over on my Patreon page, where I’ve been posting a lot of process stuff and background info with each page.
Finally, thanks to all of you who came out to the Sequential Art Gallery show opening last week. I had a great time chatting with you all about boats and process and upcoming plans. The pages will be up all month if you missed the party and would like to go take a look! Here’s the gallery’s page with more details.
Hope to see many of you in the next few weeks at SPX and RCCC!
The time is upon us!
I’m departing for Boston this evening for a week of historical research and sailing aboard the Charles W. Morgan, an original 1840s wooden whaling ship. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, feel free to refresh your memory with this post. I’ve got some fun stuff scheduled for the blog while I’m away, so stay tuned for news and thrilling events that will autopost in my absence. I’ll also do my best to update from the road — or water, as it were.
In addition: I would also love to see any and all of you in the Boston area at Trident Booksellers and Cafe, where I’ll be doing a reading/signing on July 14th at 7pm. This is my first solo signing event, and I’m really excited to meet all my East Coast boat comics people. Here’s a link to Trident’s site with some more info, plus a Facebook event where you can invite your friends.
See you on the other side, pals!
So some of you may have heard of this fancy new service called…
In a nutshell, Patreon is a platform that allows fans to directly support creators they love on an ongoing basis. As a full-time freelancer, a ton of my time and energy goes into taking client work that will help me pay my bills and keep a roof over my head. Because of this, my passion projects often end up on the back burner — which bothers me because I’m sure those projects are exactly the kind of content that led you to me in the first place, and it’s the kind of content that I would really love to be pumping out for your enjoyment every month. Fortunately, Patreon has an answer to this conundrum. Here’s my project video to tell you a little about how it works:
If you aren’t able to watch the video right now, here’s the gist:
On my page you can pledge to send an amount of money my way every 30 days — it could be fifty cents, it could be forty bucks — and in exchange you get access to sweet behind-the-scenes action, special PDF downloads, or even a handwritten postcard from me every month. This ongoing support allows me to devote more time to creating the comics I want to share with you the most, and hopefully gives you a neat opportunity to see what my process is like from the back end.
Sound interesting? Then…
I am super excited about the possibilities of this platform, and I’m really eager to start sharing parts of my process that I generally don’t talk about online through the Patrons-Only Process Blog. If you enjoy my work and would like to see more of it in the future, check out the page! I would love to hear what you think of it.
Thank you so much, everyone!
Hey gang! So some of you may have noticed a new little widget on the side of my site. It looks like this:
I’ve put up a donation button because I’ve been accepted to table at the Thought Bubble Festival in England this year (WOO!) and I would absolutely LOVE to attend, but the airfare costs are prohibitively expensive ($1200 for a round trip ticket plus train fare and lodging — haroo). I’m setting aside as much as I can from every job I complete this summer and pursuing other funding options, but I figure every little bit helps!
Thought Bubble is one of those shows that I’ve been hearing about for years and wishing I could attend. It’s a great mix of independent and mainstream cartoonists, a hub for creative work in my home away from home, and an opportunity to dip my toe in the wider world of European festivals. If any of you feel like helping me raise the cash I would be eternally grateful. I haven’t been back to see family in England for six years (the longest I’ve ever gone without a visit) and this would be an amazing opportunity to bring my work overseas and connect with these dear people who I haven’t seen in an age — plus some new readers and fans!
So that’s that.
“But wait!” you say. “This charity stuff is all well and good, but what if I want to give you money and actually get something in return?” Well friend, I have exciting news for you.
One of Thought Bubble’s special guests, dynamite comics lady Danielle Corsetto, is taking a giant road trip tour this summer and has hired me to write and draw a fill-in guest arc for her amazing comic Girls With Slingshots. I’ve been reading this strip since its inception ten years ago and was totally floored when Danielle took me on as one of her guest artists. What a trip! My guest comics will be going up in late July, so I’m right in the middle of inking them right now. Here’s a sneak peek at the pencils for strip #1:
Okay so here’s where the money comes in: because Danielle is a rad professional, she’s paying all her guest artists a solid rate for their work, but she’s also running a Kickstarter to cover the costs for her summer book tour, and we’re really close to a stretch goal that nets all the artists involved a sweet cash money bonus. This extra chunk of change would take care of almost half my flight cost! So head over to the campaign page and check out the cool rewards she has lined up. It’s a great way for you to get some nifty swag and help me in my quest for international domination.
And as if that weren’t enough…
You guys like these Oh Joy, Sex Toy guest comics I’ve been doing, right? So Erika Moen is also running a Kickstarter to print the collected first year of OJST, and her stretch goals also include paying her guest artists (new and old) a higher page rate for their work. If you like sex, sex education, sex toys, Erika, me, ridiculous laser cannon boobs, rope, or any combination of those things, pre-order her fabulous book!
My first guest comic (a beginners introduction to rope bondage) will be included in the print volume, along with over 200+ other pages of prime content. Again: you get sweet rewards, I get a super-helpful cash bonus that makes traveling to the UK financially feasible.
EVERYONE WINS!
If you’re looking for a more sustainable way to support my work, stay tuned. I have something exciting to announce before the end of the month. Until then, thanks for everything!
(Especially reading this massive post. You’re all champs.)
I was so excited to return to Erika Moen’s Oh Joy, Sex Toy this week and deliver a guest comic about the exciting, unorthodox possibilities of the lowly Cutter Snake Bite Kit. The comic is (obviously) very not safe for work, but if you’ve got a spare moment in the comfort of your own home or exceptionally progressive workplace, give it read!
While you’re at it, be sure to check out Erika’s Kickstarter campaign to print the first year of OJST comics — including my first guest strip about rope bondage! The campaign has already shot through it’s initial funding goals, but all the excess funding raised past this point goes towards paying the guest artists a higher page rate, so every dollar helps make it more feasible for me to do many more guest strips in the future.
Great news, Canada! You can find me slinging comics this weekend at the ever-so-fabulous Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It remains far and away my favorite show of 2013 and I’m sure this year will be even more excellent than the last. For starters I have so many more comics to share with you than I did last year! LOOK AT ALL THESE COMICS: 
GOLLY. Then there’s the stellar guest list, the super cool panels, and the FREE ADMISSION. Do I have your attention yet? GOOD, ‘CAUSE IT’S GONNA BE A PARTY AND I WANT YOU TO BE THERE. 
You can find me on the ground floor at Table 145 in the Toronto Reference Library from 9am – 5pm on Saturday May 10th and 11am – 5pm on Sunday May 11th so no excuses come say hello.
WOO!
Had a lot of fun illustrating this exclusive postcard for the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival last week. It’s funny how certain pieces really showcase the concept that “Everything’s a Remix”. There are a couple influences here that I’d feel remiss not pointing out: the concept for this piece is totally a spin on a shoot my photographer friend Peter Chee did a couple years ago. His original subject, my pal Tess Myers, is a metalworker, so the halo featured all her tools. I loved that photo and have always wanted to do something similar for illustration or comics.
The second influence is definitely Erika Moen’s saintly portraits, though they have the benefit of real gold leaf (shiny!). I love Erika’s comics, but I’ve also been really inspired by her mixed media collage illustrations. I have all this fancy paper at home that I never really play around with anymore (I used to be more of a book arts gal), so this was an excuse to try something a little more illustrative.
Anyway, keep an eye out for these at VanCAF 2014! I’ll be exhibiting there in May.
In-depth, human-interest news platform Narratively featured a comic of mine this week. “The Secret Life of Gitmo’s Women” collects the two interviews I illustrated for Symbolia Magazine in collaboration with writer Sarah Mirk early last year. These two stories haven’t been free to read online before now, so head over and take a look. (Note: these comics deal with issues of harassment and sexual assault. Please read with awareness.)
The comic has also been accepted to this year’s Open Engagement conference in New York, where Laura Sandow (one of the veterans we worked with) will be presenting it in May. Unfortunately it sounds like I won’t be able to make the conference due to conflicting convention arrangements, but I do hope those of you in the New York area can go check it out. More on the Open Engagement homepage.
I finally rustled up another contribution to Party on Paper this week! P.O.P. is a collaborative comics project run by me, Bridget Underwood, and Carolyn Nowak where we draw conversational comics about, well, comics mostly. This round we wanted to answer some of the questions in our Inbox, so here’s my take on an origin story.
Stay tuned for Carolyn’s story by following Party on Paper on Tumblr.