Hullo and happy Sunday Funday people! Welcome to another newsletter. The year seems to be flying by (doesn’t it always and why am I continually surprised by it), it’s already mid-March. Next week is Saint Patrick’s Day-one of my favorite days of the year! And then, it’s just a slow slog until we get to Halloween-oh wait! I forgot about Easter. Anyway...
My weeks are starting to feel more productive although it’s been a painfully long time since I made any comics. I’m still in the writing phase with The After Death but am happy to report I actually got some words down on paper this week instead of just being in my head trying to sort out what comes next. On top of writing, I’ve been reading a lot more as well to get better acquainted with the genre Eerie is in-more about that in a moment.
And I’m still casually job hunting, looking for something that’ll be a good fit. I am happy to report that when I opened up my commissions for pet portraits last week I nearly filled them up. I opened up five spots for pet portraits for March and all but one has been taken. So, I’m happy to have some freelance work--and a payment came in this week from a local bookstore that I have my After Death comics at. Three cheers for passive income! Anyway, let’s get into it.
Magical Realism
For the newbies that are reading my newsletter for the first time: welcome! I’m super happy you’re here! At the moment I’m working on pitching a graphic novel project to agents. Preparing a pitch takes a lot more work than you’d think and every time I think I’m getting ahead, turns out that I’m barely getting started. It very much feels like one step forward, two steps back. BUT! I’m hanging in there and trying to keep my motivation and momentum up. Part of pitching a graphic novel is knowing where your book will fit in on the shelves at a bookstore. This is important because it tells your agent what the vibe of your story is and what its competition looks like. Eerie’s genre is YA magical realism and paranormal. Doing my due diligence, I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels in that genre. This week, let’s look at three of them.
This Place Kills Me is actually the odd man out here because it’s really a murder mystery. Set in an all girls school sometime in the 90’s. I think in made my list because it’s set in the 90’s and so is Eerie. It really doesn’t count but I did read it so it deserves a grade: C+ A “C” in my book is average and this book is slightly above so because of the art-which is really good, but not really for me. Like most graphic novels, the plot seemed rushed, the reveals didn’t feel earned and were predictable.
Cry Out Loud is an Irish thriller that takes an Irish folktale and turns things up a notch. I’d give a D. I didn’t hate it, but it was underwhelming. There’s time travel involved. The plot is convoluted and I wasn’t super satisfied with the ending. Skip it.
And now we get to my bright shining star: Snapdragon. Kat Leyh who also contributes to The Lumberjanes (a summerween graphic novel from previous years), is at the wheel here and delivers a great story about a girl who lives in a trailer park with her single mom. Snapdragon is her name (named after her mom’s favorite flower) but she goes by Snap. The book opens up with her confronting the town’s supposed witch who may-or may not-have eaten her dog. From that point forward is a fun story about relationships and small town adventures. Leyh’s character’s immediately have voices you recognize, people you want to root for and is peppered with humor and heart. It’s a solid A+ and if you haven’t read it, you’re missing out!
Among these three books, Snapdragon is the one that aligns the most with Eerie and will probably be one of the books that I mention when it comes to comparable titles.
Summerween 2026
Summerween is on the horizon and I’m keeping my eyes peeled. For those that don’t know Summerween is my Halloween meets summertime answer for those summertime blues when the days are long and hot and all I can think about is putting my giant jack o’lantern inflatable on the roof of my house to usher in Spooky Season. Every summer for the past two years I’ve hosted a month long book club where we read four graphic novels based on a theme. This year’s theme is officially zombies! And if you’re interested, I released the reading list over on Patreon this week. Click this link, and head over to Patreon to see if you wanna’ join in this year and make summer spooky.
Also if you’ve never ever heard of Summerween or want to know more about it, I wrote a little blog up that may help explain things. Read it here.
What’s Making Me Happy This Week
Rhea and I went to the zoo this past Friday with our nieces. The Fort Worth Zoo is one of my favorite places to spend the day and I loved every minute of it. The weather was perfect, a lot of the animals were active and noisy, the nieces are always cute, and a good time was had by all.
That about wraps up this week’s newsletter. Not a lot of art to share at the moment, such is the life of a comic creator sometimes. A lot of reading, a little bit of writing, a little bit of nail biting trying to figure out what you want the next story to be about, a lot of stressing that you’ll never write again, some freelance work, and a blank page staring back at you. Thanks for reading all the same, I’m happy you’re here and hope to see you back here in a week!
~b