Printer Porn

Tell the Turning (my illustrated collaboration with poet Tara Shepersky) went to press last week in Poland and our publisher, Stefan, has been sending the most delicious slew of process photos from the print house. I figured I’d post some of them here because I’m trying to get in the habit of using this space for visual stuff just as much as I use it for blathering in text about craft and money and comics and everything else.

SO!

Here’s our impressive and pristine stack of Munken Arctic paper! This is one of the few papers not currently suffering from extreme stock shortages in central Europe, leading to our unexpectedly-ahead-of-schedule print date. At a time when all sorts of publishers and indie creators are reporting a three-month average delay in production timelines, I’ll take it.

A towering pallet of pristine white paper.

Here it is all loaded into the printer. (I have an intense soft spot for the little vacuum plungers that lift the pages off one by one.)

A complex offset press housing a huge stack of blank paper.

And then of course comes the best part of any printing house update which is, naturally, the video:

WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH! BOOK BOOK BOOK!

That leaves us with a HUGE stack of printed pages…

A huge stack of printed pages.

…which will then be trimmed and sewn together to create the final book.

You can get a closer look at some of the illustrations (including the cover and the special Field Offering postcards I designed for Kickstarter backers) in this sheet:

A black and white sheet with several illustrations aligned with text, all pages from the book Tell the Turning. There are crows and owls and spirals of kelp—all pictures of things from the natural world.

Basically it’s going to be here before we even know it and I think it’s going to look and feel incredible and I cannot wait. What a joy.

(I should probably also mention that you can preorder the book here! It’s currently on track to begin shipping October 20th, which is just around the corner.)

This concludes the first installment of the “post more visual content, you coward” challenge. Thank you.

Ojai: Talk of the Town

It feels strange to cross these streams here, but my Hometown Self and my Professional Self got together and gave an interview to my friend Bret Bradigan about being in Ojai and what I’m working on right now and how I’m thinking about communities and support for artists these days and some other stuff. You can listen in via this handy embedded player:

Incomplete list of links to things discussed:

Bret also publishes a local magazine called Ojai Quarterly, which I did an interview for last…winter? I think?

Oh, November 2018. Two years ago. Ha. Cool. Wow.

Anyway, there are some things to read and listen to! (I still don’t know if this blog is the place to be sharing these, but I’m throwing everything at the wall for now and seeing what sticks.)

Grand Adventure Reviewed on Comics Bulletin

TinyPagesMadeofAshes3Woke 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!