One Quick, One Slow

Two lovely pieces of feedback on the blog in very different mediums recently: a tiny, encouraging email from Rob right after my last entry and the sweetest postcard from Piper that arrived in my PO box sometime in June (but given the way life’s been going I didn’t manage to stop by and discover it until well into July).

Maybe it’s because blogging is often a much quieter affair than posting on social media, but I love these little blips and boops of connection. They hit harder than comments and likes and reblogs. They feel more personal. They remind me to reach out and email people (or write them a card!) when their work strikes a chord.

I had cause to do this recently with Ursula Vernon, whose work I’ve been following since I was in middle school. She’s been sharing some very vulnerable comics about dealing with breast cancer and I thought “My god, if not now, when?” It’s been over TWENTY YEARS and I’ve never taken the time to tell this person how much discovering her website and her comics and her delightfully eccentric illustrations meant to me as a weird tween without a lot of artistic friends. It’s an impossible gift when someone’s been a fixed point in your creative community for that long.

It reminds me that even if social media is crumbling around us, people can endure. The impressions we make on one another outlast the silos and the buyouts and the implosions.

But it’s good to come out and say so every once in a while.

New Nautical Postcards

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I’ve added not one, but TWO new postcards to my nautical line-up as of this morning. You can now own prints of HMS Rose (otherwise known as HMS Surprise in Master and Commander) and the Peking (last of the prestigious Flying-P line) via my online emporium. These cards feature the same matte, silky goodness previously seen on the barn swallow prints, plus 1/4″ rounded corners for maximum charm factor. Buy a pack of 5 or treat yourself to a variety bundle. The 16pt card stock is extra hefty so as to withstand the rigors of the postal system should you choose to mail any of these via the postcard format supplied on the back:

PostcardBackPreviewWebI’ll also have these designs available at TCAF in a couple weeks — stay tuned for more details!

 

Cartozia Paper Figures!

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YOU GUYS LIKE PAPER DOLLS? I DO.

These are some fancy postcards that will come bundled with the second issue of Cartozia Tales. They’ll be fully sendable, so you can either cut ‘em out or mail ‘em to friends. The paper will be nice and sturdy, and the figures each have outfits that you can color and cut out yourself from the centerfold of the second issue. If you don’t want to cut up your precious comic, we’ll even offer PDFs of the outfits so you can make as many as you like!

Sarah Becan created Reshii (who’s one of the characters I’ll be working with in Issue 2), and Jen Vaughn is responsible for Sylvia.

In the meantime, as I mentioned yesterday, Issue 1 is available for pre-order at a dollar off the regular price until it starts shipping on August 1st!

SO MUCH EXCITING CARTOZIA NEWS!

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A watercolor postcard I doodled many moons ago just resurfaced in my pile of outgoing mail. Thought I’d share for the sake of getting some color in here for a change — though my scanner doesn’t play nice with the vividness of the colors. I’d like to start doing these regularly, since I have a mess of blank watercolor postcards and a desire to revive and better my rusty-going-on-nonexistent skills. I’ll keep you posted.