Tag: new book

Delights, News

Welcome, baby.

Hey look. It’s here.

A hand holding up a copy of Tell the Turning against a grassy field and sunlit trees and a blue sky. The cover of the book is simple white with a spiral of illustrated stones.

Working on Tell the Turning with Tara and Stefan over the past year has been such a gentle, eye-opening process. Historically, there’s been an element of exhaustion or overstimulation in the work I make due to it being tied in so many respects to social media. The energy of being on Twitter or Instagram bleeds into everything from the pace of production to the pressure to reach more people. Even if I’m enjoying making the art, there’s this extra stuff that I don’t quite know what to do with.

But this book felt different.

We took it at exactly the pace we wanted to. We didn’t share a great deal online as things came together. Instead, we focused on enjoying the process of building something as a team. We focused on enjoying each other. Mostly this took the form of writing many, many goofy emails, but there were other bits and pieces too.

I’m pretty sure we’ve only had one Zoom call this whole time.

When it was time to crowdfund the book, it funded. Quickly, and without much fuss. There was no need to hurtle towards stretch goals because we knew what we wanted to make and it was modest. Between us, we knew enough people who were willing to pitch in. We shared the load.

Time passed. The manuscript was typeset. I spent about a month in my new studio making paintings, settling in, texting Tara occasionally to ask about the identity of this or that plant mentioned in the book. We took a walk on the beach when she was visiting California in the summer. Stefan and his team sent the book to print.

And now all three of us have copies in our hands. In Poland, in Portland, in Ojai. And I guess a lot of other people are about to have copies in their hands as well, but a lot of this still feels local to that trinity.

Three friends who wanted to make something together, and then did.

A spread of white paperback books, all copies of Tell the Turning. There's a spiral of grey rocks on the cover, plus a few postcards scattered around. The books lie in a grassy field.

I like working this way. I hope I get to do it again sometime.

Comics, News

Announcing: 100 Demon Dialogues

Hi friends,

Big, big news today! My latest project, 100 Demon Dialogues, is now live on Kickstarter!

For the past three months, as part of the 100 Day Project, I’ve been illustrating a daily dialogue with the little voice in my head who tells me I’m no good. (You might recognize him from my Inktober drawing challenges from the last couple years.)

I just drew the 100th entry this morning and I’ve been so overwhelmed by the response to the project. Hearing from people who see themselves reflected in these drawings makes my heart swell. I’ve also heard from a lot of people who want to own these comics for themselves! So here’s what we’re gonna do about that:

  1. The Books!
    • Today’s Kickstarter launch will fund both softcover and hardcover editions of the book. I am very excited about the whole thing. Here are some of the special features I’m aiming for: 
  2. The Plushies!
    • The Kickstarter will also be funding a run of PLUSH DEMONS to keep you company as you do battle with your own voices of anxiety and self-doubt. This little fella will measure about 15″ from tip to tail, and can easily sit up on any surface you care to place him on. (If you’d like to read all about what it takes to produce a plush toy from start to finish, I just did an in-depth blog post about it over on Tumblr.) Here’s a look at the prototype:
  3. The Print Shop!
    • Lots of folks asked for prints of particular demons, but since producing, stocking, and shipping 100 different print types is a massive headache for a long creator like myself, I’ve partnered with the fine folks at Buyolympia to provide archival-quality prints of any demon your heart desires. The store is almost ready, and I’ll be sure to link to it here on the blog once it’s up.

So there we go! You can read all the entries in the series here on the site, head to the campaign page to preorder books and plushies, or buy prints (very soon, I promise) from Buyolympia!

Thanks, as ever, to my amazing supporters on Patreon, who gave me the stability to devote so much time to the this project over the last three months. Y’all are the best.

LET’S GO MAKE SOME COOL SHIT.

News

New Collection: A Life in Objects

A little promotional chat this week: I’ve got a new box set collection available in my store!

lubellwoo_2016-sep-17

If you recall I tried my hand at participating in The 100 Day Project this year, drawing a thing a day every day for 100 consecutive days from April to July. I documented a bunch of meaningful objects in my life, complete with context—a miniature museum of personal history.

Here are all the finished entries in one big sheet:

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Once the illustrations were done, I wanted to bring them into one location at the same size they were drawn, so I contacted some printing friends of mine at Eberhardt Press and Twin Ravens Press to create sets of pocket-sized replica notebooks and a handsome, gold-foil slipcase to hold them in. Here’s my original mockup of the booklets, with a die-cut cover:

 

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Once I’d figured out the basic format, I went hunting for the right kinds of endpapers. Kristin at Twin Ravens had sold me on the idea of doing gold foil on the boxes, so I wanted something to match:

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BINGO.

A lot of frenetic proofing and printing and cutting and folding later, we ended up with boxes that could be cut out and assembled without any glue! And a lot of handsome booklets to go inside them.

Then my life became a long chain of assembly line time (500 box sets is a lot of box sets). I folded boxes at home, at the studio, at coffee shops, behind my table at SPX, and on planes:

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A couple weeks of that yielded shippable box sets that winged their way to folks around the globe, which is my absolute favorite part of the process.

Here’s a little video walkthrough of the final result:

I’m so excited to have these new beauties out in the world. If you’d like one for yourself, they’re available exclusively through my store right now. Enjoy!