I moved out of my Maine apartment on my birthday last month, and have been in New Hampshire with my parents since...but, I did also just get back from visiting Portland again for a week, which was lovely.

I’ll give you some art updates, and then close out with some books I picked up recently that I’ve been enjoying (/plan to enjoy in my studio this fall)

ART UPDATES:
I made a new comic for a comic reading I was a part of last week! It’s a 16 pg funny comic called BALD LITE, about buzzing my hair off. I’m planning on printing a nicer addition this fall (risographed hopefully), but I’m also planning on posting it on itch.io, hopefully this week.

Outside the comic, I’ve been struggling to make art. It’s hard to pin down, but it’s a mix of the overwhelming unknowns + being out of my routine + not having access to a lot of my traditional art supplies. The iPad’s fun, but I’m really craving some paint right now...here’s a torchbearer I finished, as well as a Katniss that I started.

Also, I do think I’ll use Patreon while in school, so I’m planning on revamping some of those tiers soon. It’ll be lower-key than the last time I used it, but I think having it as a place to dump what I’m working on would be helpful for me :-) More about this in my next newsletter…

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BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS!

Even though I just packed up my everything into boxes (and cursed the amount of books I already have), I couldn’t resist getting some more...

FIFTH GRADE GRADUATION by flesh.png (/Chan)
I’ve loved Chan’s work for a long time...maybe since 2018? 2019? SO, when this big ol’ book was announced, I knew I wanted one. I think I do prefer the printing in the individual editions Chan’s made before (those seem more saturated on the page vs this--though, they’re packed up right now, so I could be totally wrong lol), but it’s awesome having a tome of all their work in one place. Wish I could’ve seen their solo exhibit at Nucleus Gallery (+ same for Katherine Lam, who’s about to have theirs in August)!

ALL THE CAMERAS IN MY ROOM by michael deforge
The more Michael DeForge I read, the more I fall in love with his work. This is a compilation of shorter works, some of which have been published elsewhere (there’s one Universal Monsters story that I saw the other day in a copy of McSweeney’s). All of which sport the off-kilter and absurd sort of energy Michael’s work is known for, but all in ways that kept me engaged throughout. Along with the Universal Monsters piece I mentioned, I also loved this one about a bell air employee / gay sex line, as well as another about a fictitious horror movie special effects guy. Honestly, loved the whole collection!

BAD PEOPLE / ELECTRONIC GAMES by Masala Noir
Both of these are curated collections of sourced images--Japanese TV show villains and handheld electronic games, respectively. I found these at Bold magazine shop in Portland, ME, and knew I had to get them both. There’s so many fun images in both of these--I’m looking forward to using them for sketching, as well as design inspiration.

CARS AND TRUCKS AND THINGS THAT GO by Richard Scarry
Hopefully this isn’t your first time hearing the name, but I’ve been very Scarry-pilled recently. Got this 50th edition of the book at the Green Hand in Portland, and it makes me yearn for the Little Golden Books I had as a kid.

This newer edition also has some BTS for Richard’s workflow which I thought was awesome...let’s have a tracing paper/acetate fall...

A YEAR OF JUNK JOURNALING by Martina Calvi
Did I need this? No. Have I ever really done any junk journaling? Not really. But, I was at Opé Stationary (new stationary store in Portland), and I thought the images inside just looked so nice...I’d like to really focus on traditional image making while in school this time, and I’d love to try some more collage-y ways of making illustrations, so I thought this would be good studio fodder (even if I don’t really use any of the prompts in it directly).

Processing the scale of the upheaval I’ve taken upon myself for going to grad school has been taking a lot from me emotionally/energy-wise, so I apologize for being a bit absent. Historically I’ve had a hard time with change, so I’ve just been trying to take it a day at a time until I can build a new routine for myself. I’ll tune in with you guys next month before the semester starts, as a little check in before this next part of my art life! Until then, be well.

—xoxo court

~The Professional Section~

1. my shop is now live!

I’ve been busy working behind the scenes on a shop update, and it’s finally here! You can peruse it here. I have some old stuff that I’m trying to cycle out of, as well as a bunch of new stuff (both stuff I haven’t sold online before, and a few new stickers).

If you want a discount code, I’m going to hide somewhere in the rest of this newsletter (to hopefully incentivize you to read it, lol). But, yeah, I’m gonna be moving soon to St. Louis, so if you wanted to get some things and relieve me of packing all this stuff up, I’d appreciate it! And if things aren’t working, just let me know…it’s a new host that I’m using and I’m scared…

2. my ghostface zine is also live now

If you’ve missed it, I’ve been painting some little creatures for a zine I’m calling “for sale: ghost costume, never worn”, and it’s finally done and ready! You can purchase it here via Mixam’s PrintLink service (I would like to have a stock of it, but because of the moving/uncertainty for how well it’s going to sell, this is the best option currently). There’s over 40 watercolor drawings in it, and I’m quite happy with how my guys turned out.

3. you can read ry carpenter has a bad day for free right now

I posted about it but if you didn’t hear, you can read Ry Carpenter Has a Bad Day for free on my itch.io now! The physical edition of S4G Volume 1 is still the only place you can read the initiation currently, but I wanted to release something for free comics day this year :-)

4. upcoming projects

I’m currently kinda struggling with creating (see personal section), but I’m chipping away at either two separate comics or one slightly bigger one, not quite sure yet. One part is about cutting off all my hair (it’s buzzcut summer baby), and the other part is just about loss and grieving moving from this little city i’ve come to know and love (was thinking about calling it “dead wife montage” but i worry that tHe AlGoRiThM won’t like something with “dead” in the title…SIGH). Hoping to have it done by August..?

I’m also lightly thinking about using Patreon again—it wouldn’t have the snail mail aspect, but just to have it as a place to collect what I’m working on that isn’t as algorithm-dependent (and Maybe some kind of group chat/discord/book club feature). Still TBD.

~The Personal Section~

Wow a lot’s happened since the last time I wrote one of these! Both MoCCA Fest and CAMP were fantastic, thank you to anyone who came up and said hi to me. I still need to make a blog post about all the goodies I got ToT (will probably put this on my website and link to it in a future newsletter). I also tabled on free comic book day at a local shop (shoutout Stairway to Heaven comics in Portsmouth, NH), which was really nice. Also, if you want 10% off in my shop, you can use the code PENPAL at checkout (thanks for reading so far). I wrapped up my semester of TAing for a comics class which was a really great experience—it’s nice being on the teaching side and getting to see everyone’s work come together (…more or less, haha). Got to see the BFA/MFA thesis exhibitions and the commencement ceremony at my alma mater, so that was nice! I’ve been out of school as long as I was in it…the world is sick and twisted…

All that being said, whoo boy, I’ve been going through it. I think it’s finally hitting me that my life is about to wildly change (if only for two years), and so my brain’s been retaliating as a result. I’m also quite burnt out from all the stuff I’ve been doing since leaving my full time job (but I also feel like I’ve been doing nothing…which I suspect is part of the problem. Big if true). I’ve just been Really Anxious All The Time which is obviously not a great way to be feeling! (I run at like, a 6/10 anxious no matter what, so it’s just been More bad recently). Like I’m constantly forgetting something and that I’ll be smited (smote?) for forgetting said thing. And sad, definitely sad. And unfortunately I think I’ll kinda be Like This until I touch down in St. Louis (where it will then transform into a new type of anxiety/sadness), so…yeah. Every day I go to bed thinking “that one was a wash, let’s hope tomorrow’s better” and well…well. I’m really grateful for all of my irl friends I’ve been hanging out with (and will continue to hang out with in person while I’m still in Maine), it’s been really meaningful. To be so honest, I’ve really been struggling to keep up with the administrative aspects of being a presence online so, if you see me scale back over the summer, it’s just me trying to recharge.

Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading.

xoxo, court

ps. what i’ve been reading: homestuck (yes for real, for the first time, i’m having a good time with it), and a bunch of graphic novels (just read lindsey cheng dates a white boy by asia miller, so fun); what i’ve been listening to: muna’s new album and the “if books could kill” podcast; what i’ve been watching: some movies, but also HALF MAN…yall gotta get into half man if you haven’t already. also went to my first hockey game ever, that was fun…let’s go maine mariners

Feels like it’s been a million years since my last newsletter—hope y’all are doing okay!! As okay as can be expected at least!

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My March (and I guess that last week of February after my last newsletter) have been good, actually. Not perfect of course, but a lot of good in there. As I type I’m currently packing to fly to NYC this weekend for MoCCA Fest—super excited/nervous/secret third feeling!!!

To be so honest, I’ve been struggling with a bit of “imposter syndrome” mixed with “art block,” as much as either of those things can be singled out feeling-wise among other environmental factors lol. I think I usually get this way after finishing a bigger project (like with S4G volume 1), so I’m just trying to keep going regardless. I think I feel the most secure when I’m working on a million different things at once, so then when it’s the aftermath and I’m trying to find something else to do, I worry that I won’t be able to keep up and that everything will be fucked forever…which hopefully isn’t the case. I think the combo of finishing the comic AND vending at this event where there’s a lot of cool people is the bulk of where these feelings are stemming from.

And, perhaps, I think this feeling is also due to the fact that I will, indeed, be going to grad school starting this fall (!!!). I got into my top choice program with a 100% tuition scholarship, which is amazing. AND YET, now the realities of actually leaving this place I’ve called home for my whole adult life thus far are starting to hit me </3…Plus, I’m now feeling some pressure to live up to the expectations set by the work I submitted to get in, lol.

I also just generally struggle with change I guess—I felt this way last year when I moved out of my last apartment (which was riddled with cockroaches and mice…why do I feel sentimental about these things!!), and even in January when I left my job. So even though it’s exactly what I wanted, and I’m so excited for the program, I’m now coping with leaving my support system here, at least for two years.

(I haven’t really hard-launched this info yet, but it’s WashU’s Illustration + Visual Culture MFA program in St. Louis! You lovely people can know first)

So yeah, trying to just let myself breathe a little…because I had to ship out my stuff for MoCCA, that also forced me to be done with my preparations last week, so I feel like I’ve been twiddling my thumbs all week waiting for tomorrow LOL. BUT, I did paint these two Cassidy Sinclairs today to bring to MoCCA!

If you didn’t see my studio vlog on Youtube, my copies of S4G Volume 1 came in and they look gorgeous!! I’m so thrilled to have been able to make them. It’s uniquely satisfying to turn jpegs on the computer into something you can hold in your hands…

I’ve been doing a lot of percolating on future story/comic/whatever ideas, but not a lot of execution…been finding it hard to focus lately. BUT I’m hoping that they’ll be able to start taking shape soon…of course now that I’m going to grad school starting in August, the pace of these projects outside of my school work will be a bit slower most likely lol.

That’s about all I got for ya today—I’ll be back in April, most likely with some reflections from MoCCA and CAMP! If you’re around NYC this weekend (or Portland, ME on April 11th,), I hope to see ya! Regardless, be well until next time.

xoxo court

For this month’s newsletter I thought I’d go through the process I’ve been utilizing for making comic pages for Saints for Girls Volume 1 (which, is currently live on Kickstarter for a few more days, and is oh so close to its goal). Tell all your friends and whatnot! Might make this into a Youtube video as well at some point, but you’re getting it first :-)

The processes for the two comics in Volume 1 are similar, with some slight differences. I’ll go through a page from The Initiation (which is the new comic that’s exclusive to Volume 1—just finished the last page today, yippee!), and I’ll also mention some differences between this and the process for Ry Carpenter has a Bad Day throughout.

THUMBNAILING/BRAINSTORMING

I personally find it super difficult to write a more “standard” comic script, so my writing process tends to involve more of a simultaneous stream of consciousness writing with thumbnails at the same time. If I’m just writing, I tend to overwrite (or tell instead of show via drawing), so having an idea of what text will go where also helps me make the text not too overwrought. For me I also find it much easier to plan a project out on a macro scale, seeing how long the actually story is and where the page turns/spreads land. RChaBD has a weird page count for printing (33, 38 with some of the back matter) so I decided to make this one a weird count too (19) to make it print a bit better.

Since the premise for this comic is “they all have a different initiation ritual/task/whatever that they wanna do”, I planned it based on how much page time each of there tasks/scenes would need. I know I wanted to end on a nice little vignette in a diner, and that there were going to be two double-page spreads (the kissing one, and a board game/tattooing montage, lol)

I plotted out their dialogue mostly based on where I wanted each page turn to be—I think (even in something that’s not suspenseful in a thriller/horror sense), being able to time a beat to when a page is turned is something really special about comics in particular. I drew some things, but otherwise it was really just plotting at this phase (I drew more intensive thumbnails for RChaBD, but found I still needed to do more sketching for some pages anyway—it all comes out in the wash, basically lol)

ROUGH SKETCH

After this writing step (which I did in Notability—not affiliated or whatever, I’ve just been using it for like 7 years on and off), I went into Procreate for the rough sketches. For the first time, I used a comic grid guide—this one specifically—and I actually found it really useful. Will be using it (or something similar) in the future for sure! It made quickly planning out panels and gutters really friction-less.

I enjoy Procreate particularly for this step because I think their Page Assist is just really convenient. It gets annoying to get super fancy/complicated in these documents, WHICH makes it so you have to just focus on the drafting without being super precious, at least in the way I use it (pro tip: you can use groups in Procreate to have a page with multiple layers! Same goes with their Animation Assist).

This is very much a rough draft—basically trying to get all the pieces loosely in place to refine later (both in terms of the panels, and what goes inside of them). I find I rarely change the panel layout once I’ve…well…laid it out, but I’ll definitely adjust the contents inside if needed. (A filled out page is way easier to edit than a blank one!)

For the first time I’m also experimenting with using a font instead of hand lettering this story, mainly just because I wanted to try it out for a change! I’ve been really enjoying Izzy Liu’s Sourdough Starter comic and so I was inspired to just use a sans serif font. I think it’s divisive, but IIII really like it—it has a DIY, fan-translated-manga look that isn’t too precious or flashy. ALL THAT BEING SAID, once I finished the rough sketches, I took these into Affinity to place the actual-size text. I do this here so that way I can plan the drawings around the text accordingly, and so that way I can plan for the space the speech bubbles take up as well.

FINAL SKETCHES

Another thing I tried out with this one—I made the final sketches analog-ly on paper! I enjoyed making IF MY BOSS SEES THIS, I’M JUST KIDDING!!! traditionally, so I wanted to keep some of that momentum here. I thought I might ink it traditionally as well, but because of the tight turnaround (self inflicted, fml) I picked digital for time. But, I still wanted some parts of the process that weren’t just staring at my iPad so, rough sketches it was! I found having the physical paintings from my calendar motivating while working on it, and these acted similarly as the pages stacked up. (Plus I wanted to have them as an option for a reward on the kickstarter).

I just used a normal mechanical pencil and cardstock for this on a lightboard I inherited from my paint bar job (we’d use them for some paintings, like if people were painting photos of their pets—this one has a slightly faulty input port, hence why I ended up with it, but it still works really well). I actually got a new Sumo Grip mechanical pencil because the one I got in 2020 has seen better days truly (RIP to a legend)

These drawings are closer to the inks, but still pretty gestural and loose. I also just generally prefer drawings saints for girls stuff in a cartoony way, so I try to keep that energy here. Once they’re sketched out on paper, I scanned them back in and placed them back in the Affinity document with the text, where I then exported that and brought it into Procreate again.

FINAL ART

This is a divergent point between The Initiation and RChaBD—I made the latter in Clip Studio Paint, which I enjoyed. I did, however, find it easy to overthink the artwork on the pages in CSP, whereas I find Procreate doesn’t do the same for me, for whatever reason. I also really appreciate Procreate’s Quick Draw tool for straight lines and that sort of thing (even though I turn the threshold up super high when I’m not drawing panels), so that was another factor.

I used basically all brushes from True Grit Texture Supply’s KolorMarc set (not spons, just like em), WITH the Soft Tone 1 brush from Wendy Xu’s homemade brush pack. Looove that brush—used Wendy’s brushes in my other Procreate-made comics (OH…HUH! and MAINTENANCE). For the linework, I used the TGTS rough outliner with a little stabilization on it to help my hand a little.

I decided to not do color for The Initiation, mainly because I found the color in RChaBD took soooo looong, so I kept it to black and white. Since marker brushes have an overlap/multiply look (which is fun, but I don’t neccessarily want all the time,) I did a fill of the whole page using the Big Fatty marker in black, masked it out, and then colored on the mask. This basically just lets you use whatever brushes you want while keeping the marker texture. I used edited versions of some more of the KolorMarc markers (brush tip - worn, fine tip - smooth, and chisel tip - streaky)—edited to be on ‘normal’ instead of ‘multiply’ (reduces the overlapping to a fun-but-mangeable level. Also since it’s on a mask, you need to use light colors on a dark background, which they normally can’t do).

I try to balance between “local color” (i.e. the closest values to what their actual hair/clothing/skin colors are) as well as “narrative color” (what I would consider any non-literal coloring, either for scene blocking/clarity or for emotional effect). TBH I think this is still something I can improve on, I find I over complicate this step (without the outcome looking better per say).

Because there’s clearly not enough texture (sarcasm) I added an overlay layer using two of my favorite brushes from this free crayon brush pack. I used the “paper” brush on a medium gray and the “workspace” brush on white across the whole page, and then set it to overlay—it creates a really subtle but nice texture across the whole thing.

Then I bring it into Affinity and its done! I bounced between final sketching and inking/coloring between different pages and different days—this is the linear overview of a page from start to finish, but I was kind of mixing it up throughout for my own sake.

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown!! If there’s any other comic related stuff that’d be interesting for me to talk about, let me know — happy to incorporate that on here more :-)

There wasn’t a ton of personal stuff here so I’ll probably throw that into the next one—after this I’ll be immediately throwing myself into prepping for MoCCA Fest and CAMP, which I’ll also save yapping about for next time (since this is long already). Probably early-mid March! But, TL:DR; I’ll be at both!!

Thank you for reading!! Until next time, be well.

xoxo court

It feels like I’ve been moving at a breakneck speed (and yet not moving at all?) so far in 2026. But, I have a lot to chat about for this update! (And, as I type this, the snow is just starting to come down in Maine, so I’ll be holed up for a minute anyways—just a good a time as any to pen a newsletter)

THE BIG STUFF

I will be launching a Kickstarter for printing Saints for Girls: Volume 1 on Tuesday, February 3rd!!! This will have both Ry Carpenter Has a Bad Day and a new comic (The Initiation) in one 60 pg graphic novella, and I’m really looking forward to it. You can follow the prelaunch page right now to be notified when it goes live! Will share more about this in the next newsletter, while the campaign is live.

I also finally released IF MY BOSS SEES THIS, I’M JUST KIDDING!!! on itch.io, so if you’d like a quick little work dysphoria read for your (perhaps snowy) Sunday, feel free to check that out ^_^

I will be at MoCCA Fest in NYC March 28-29!! It’ll be my first time there (and my first time tabling in NYC), and I’m sooo nervous but also sooo excited. I’ll be sharing a table with my lovely mutual Kristoff (@)fang.bangrr and it should hopefully be a really good time. I’ll also be at CAMP in Portland, ME on April 11! (I have more to share about that but I don’t think I can yet..?)

I have alsooo been updating my website! It’s on wordpress (I love you neocities I promise, I just want a shop and a blog and a portfolio all in one in a slightly easier way 💔). It’s still kind of a work in progress, but if you wanna poke around on there, you can find it at https://courtnormandin.com . There is also a shop on there, with stuff you can hypothetically buy—to be SO real, it’s a brand new platform for me, so there might be issues (and also with the fucking Everything Going On right now, I’d rather you put doll hairs toward local mutual aid versus a sticker that I’ve made).

Like I mentioned, there is also a blog section on that site (that’s currently vacant)—I’m thinking about using that as more of my space to fully yap, and then the newsletter can be a catch-all to point you to the yapping, if you want to read it.

You might be thinking “wow, Court, where’d you find all the time to do this stuff?” And the simple answer for that (if you don’t already know) is that I quit my job, yaaaay. I may very well be on the lookout for something else more stable soon, but I’m going to use my savings to allow myself to focus on art for a bit, and also see if any grad schools want me (currently still in the Freak Out waiting period for interviews and what not…I feel good about my chances, but you still never know!)

I talk more about this in my most recent youtube video, but basically it just got to a point where I literally could not do my job anymore. And it’s mindboggling how much of an impact and difference I could feel as soon as I left! (And I feel very lucky to have been able to leave as quickly as I did!)

Since I left (which was around the 9th I think), I have been busy with doing all of the above (and also going on walks and TAing for a comics class at my alma mater, yay). I’m hankering to do some more painting, especially with how well received my last one was (:’)). It’s the first painting I’ve ever sold, so making paintings feels more promising to me than it did like, two months ago, lol.

I also NEED TO WRITE SOME BULLSHIT, because I have so many ideas kicking around in my brain and too many empty word documents.

Maybe I’ve already talked about this before, but I’ve found the task of writing a novel (or even a novella really) waaay more overwhelming than a comic—I think with a comic (or at least, the ones I’ve made), it’s a lot easier to understand the project as a whole and kind of see it come to fruition. I also have “it needs to be perfect or else I’ll die” disease, but I need to get over that because I want to write!!! (And also…there are MANY imperfect books out there that do well and/or resonate with people, lol). I have both some horror and romance ideas that I want to put out there (that don’t make as much sense in comic form), but it’s just hard. Sigh. But I’m gonna try—hopefully I’ll have some kind of writing update for you shortly. Time to put the fries in the bag (says guy who is writing newsletter instead of working on that).

I’m also tentative to share exactly what WIPs I have going on because I’m worried that someone will beat me to actually writing it 😭 so, stay tuned for more details beyond “dude just trust me”. Let me just say that watching half of Heated Rivalry has me wanting to work on my not-actually-RPF-RPF story…and maybe drawing one of those hockey guys at some point.

I still feel pretty caught up in the spin cycle of the amount of upheaval that’s happened in the past month (six months (year (5 years (etc.)))). My usual instinct is to keep myself busy, but it’s tough for sure. (I also think now that I’m self-employed again, this instinct is tough to balance with actually resting and doing things that are good for my body—I like doing stuff so I want to just keep doing it, even when I should take a break!).

Anyway, that’s about it from me. I hope you’re well and warm (despite how fucking bleak everything in the US is right now). See you in February!

xoxo,court

I’ve been struggling to even start writing this newsletter (of things that I’ve enjoyed in this past year) so, that maybe is indicative of the state of mind I’m ending 2025 in. Before that, I do want to say a sincere thank you to you, dear reader, for joining me on this first year of substack-ing. While I have been posting more toward the end of this year on those no-good-awful social media platforms, I’ve enjoyed having a space to dump some words, and have some folks read them at their own pace. No one owes me any readership so, if you’ve read or looked at anything of mine, thank you, for real. And a special thank you to the folks I’ve seen in person this year—MICE, while sweaty and exhausting (and personally embarrassing as I had to haul my giant, heavy red suitcase around the public transit of Boston), was really amazing, and a highlight in my otherwise not-great month.

I’d like to highlight some of the things that’ve brought me joy in this past year (and put the depressing stuff at the end). I read 64 (maybe 65 depending on how tonight goes, lol) books this year!!! Big shout out to my kobo e-reader and my local library for supporting that. I’ve read quite a few that I’ve enjoyed, but here’s my top ten (among these, no particular ranking):

1. Sky Daddy - Kate Folk (basically exactly what I wanted it to be,

2. Someone Who Isn’t Me - Geoff Rickly (he really just writes laps around other people, what can I say. Shout out to Redford, whose copy I borrowed to read it the first time)

3. Paradise Logic - Sophie Kemp (probably my favorite protagonist AND my favorite cover)

4. The Thing in the Snow - Sean Adams (filled the hole in my heart that the disappointment of severance season 2 caused...barely anything happens and its delightful, or at least I thought so)

5. The Tainted Cup – Robert Jackson Bennett (read this for a book club meeting I didn’t go to, but the book was really great. Maybe I need to read more mysteries in 2026?)

6. Big Swiss - Jen Beagin (book so good it puts you in a reading slump right after—plus, introduced me to Anna Weyant’s work which I’m grateful for)

7. The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin (will put rosemary’s baby here too since stepford wives is a novella) (shout out to the 20 page paper I wrote about it basically for fun/for a grad school app)

8. Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield (looove love love julia’s writing so much. Her short story collection salt slow could also go here)

9. Educated - Tara Westover (I really love nonfiction/memoir that hits like a punch to the stomach, which this does)

10. The Compound - Aisling Rawle (I heard the author on the shit no one tells you about writing podcast—would recommend btw—and enjoyed the book even more than I thought I would)

11. BONUS – Sellout by Dan Ozzi (really interesting look at alternative music from 1994-2007 about bands that signed to major labels, and the variety of paths that unfolded for them)

Feel free to add me on storygraph @crvptozoology, if you’d like—I like getting to see what other people are reading, hehe.

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I’ve watched 80 films this year (including some short films, which maybe inflates this number a bit—this might be 81, again, depending on tonight), which is less than I did last year (171...LOL) but also more than I was expecting to see. It feels like I’ve watched like nothing this year but...guess not! Here’s another off the cuff list of my favorites in no particular order (that I watched, not necessarily that came out this year)

1. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (kicked off the year with a lot of W&G)

2. 12 Angry Men (just watched this two days ago, really well made)

3. Marty Supreme (saw this LAST NIGHT and it was incredible. Kind of exactly what I needed right now. made me think “oh man, i need to finally watch uncut gems” and then today I realized why—it’s directed by one of the same guys!)

4. Sinners (sooo so much fun—vampires forever)

5. Bugonia (yorgos just understands me for real)

6. Rosemary’s Baby (really great adaptation of the book for screen, despite the director)

7. Stoker (PARK CHAN-WOOK MY GOAT...I’m so excited to see No Other Choice next month, you have nooo idea)

8. Bring Her Back (easily the most stomach-churning film I saw, and the best needledrop (of Untouched by the Veronicas))

9. The Banshees of Inisherin (really well performed and well written)

10. Barton Fink (John Turturro how I adore you on the screen)

11. Conclave (again, just really well performed and made)

Feel free to add me on letterboxd (@crvptozoology) for all the movies I get up to.

And here’s some of my favorite slop, movies (1-4) and books (5-8). I use “slop” in a lighthearted way here mostly—I think the best way to describe it is that they brought me joy, but not because I thought they were revolutionary or well made...true slop blurs the lines between laughing at and laughing with, imo.

1. Detention (2011) (BIZARRE. Admire a film that makes you just sit in bewilderment at how it was made and can be watched to this day)

2. Double Down (2015) (Neil Breen my GOAT)

3. Devil’s Diary (2007) (SUCH good tubi horror slop, it’s delightful to watch)

4. FanGirl (2024) (Felicia Rivers, another slopteur in my eyes)

5. Psycho Shifters – Jasmine Mas (Jasmine’s writing is simply...something else. Just bewildering and bizarre and yet I can’t look away. Listened to this on audio which made the experience better (it was deeply uncomfortable and laugh-enducing))

6. Bite Marks by Bex Deveau (not slop in the same way as Jasmine’s, but is moreso just a marshmallow-y vampire lesbian romp)

7. Lights Out by Navessa Allen (eyeroll-worthy when the plot starts becoming more pronounced—might just be my inability to take a non-Sopranos/Godfather mafia thing seriously—but still fun at points)

8. Bride by Ali Hazelwood (I haaaated the Love Hypothesis and everything it stands for basically, but I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit. Honestly probably too good for a slop list)

Some other things that brought me joy: roguelikes (big year for Nubby’s Number Factory, Slay the Spire, Cloverpit, and Balatro for me); concerts (the Long Live the Black Parade tour really was a bright moment—Magdalena Bay, twenty one pilots, more that I’m forgetting).

Artistically it’s been an admittedly strange year for me. One of my goals was to have fun making art again, which I think I was mostly successful at. I also did finish two comics, as well as some writing I haven’t really shared (two short stories and some thousands of words for different manuscript projects), and I tried developing a body of painting work divested from the eyes of social media.

To be honest I think the fact that I’ve made any work this year despite The Circumstances is a good thing, it’s a miracle.

Vulnerability time: I’ve been basically constantly overwhelmed this entire year. While I’ve begun to understand myself more, my physical/mental/emotional/etc. health has struggled greatly. My relationship ended, I moved, basically everything I love in my little city has either closed or moved away (RIP Renys, the newest loss). I’m still working a job I don’t like, and because of the job market, my ideal outcome is to get fired so I can apply for unemployment—that’s like, the level of joy I’m ending the year at. I’m deeply deeply scared for the future, for my future. I have to believe that things will get better again, but to quote Twin Peaks: I fear “the possibility that love is not enough”. Since MICE (so, around the 9^th or something), I’ve been in a bleak spot. I think one of the hardest aspects is that there’s no one cause or reason, it’s a mix of just about everything building up over the past year, the past five, my entire life, whatever. I don’t expect any of you to have a solution, but I share this in case you’re going through something that feels similar. It’s quite an isolating feeling, but you’re not alone. (I also don’t say all this to make you worry about me—but, I think it’s good to peel back the social media veneer every one in a while and talk from the heart. I sincerely believe I’ll be alright, because the alternative is, again, fucking bleak).

I hope I’ll be writing to you in better spirits next time, but until then, I hope you have a happy new year. Including this writing from Hanif Abdurraqib from the start of 2024, because I saw it yesterday and it’s stuck with me:

“For the last two new years of his life before we lost him, my pal Tyler, who loved Having A Saying, would wait until after people did their midnight kissing and cheering. He’d shrug and say “fuck it, let’s steal some more time.” The idea being that it’s all the same. None of us earn the “right” to be Here or not, we’re just here and for some of us choosing to be here has been or is hard, and for those of us that has been the case for, after a while, you’re kinda stealing the hours. And so I don’t think about the turning over of the year as much. It’s all time I’m glad to steal while I can. On stage during a reading, Ross Gay once put a hand on my arm and said “this could be the last time we see each other. And knowing that, don’t you want to make the most of this, this little moment we have right now?” I think there’s a difference between interest in death or mortality, and obsession with dying. One is an emotional concern, the other is an obsession with an action. But more importantly, the former allows for a real gateway to something greater, if you’re willing to see it. It’s hard, perhaps, which is why I think people so often misread Ross or, say, Mary Oliver. The etsy-fication of “wild and precious life” has rendered the question rhetorical, when it isn’t. It’s urgent. The key that goes into the ignition of that line is the speaker, presenting the question with the understanding that you are going to die. You are required to die, BUT! the good news is, it hasn’t happened yet! And so, what, then, will you make of the hours wherein that is not happening! How will you be patient, or brave, or more aware, or more loving, or or or. Who or what will you pull close. What unsent text will be sent. What we know of the dwindling of time doesn’t allow Mary Oliver’s question to be rhetorical. I’m pretty much clinically required to treat this as another day I’m glad I’m up for, but if the new year Means Something to you, I hope it meets you well. I hope whatever bravery or care or rage you carry into it is useful. The world does not require us, and yet some of us remain. For me, to not live and act and care with deep urgency would be treasonous to the fact that I remain.”

Talk soon,

xoxo court

BUT don’t worry about that because I’m here to talk about MICE! (and general yappery after that). If you’re in the Northeast US, I’ll be at Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) in Boston this weekend (Dec 6-7) at table 53b!

Here’s a *very professional* mockup/practice of what I’m hoping my table set up will be:

Among the usual fare (signals, oh…huh!, maintenance, stickers, those zines I made for CAMP earlier this year), I’m bringing my 2026 calendars, my new comic (IF MY BOSS SEES THIS, I’M JUST KIDDING!!!), and I got new business cards! (They’re fun, opted for raised spot gloss on the lettering…YUM!). I’m also bringing the leftover little stickers I made for MCR/TOP concerts, which will also be free at my table (while supplies last lol).

If you’re going (or are just curious who I’m also excited to see there), there’s so many great people! I mean, the special guests are Scott McCloud and ND Stevenson, that’s crazy man. But also there’s: Jesse Lonergan, Bulhigan Press, Adam Szym (my tablemate!), Alvi Slocumb (fellow MECA&D alum!), Ash S, Cathy G Johnson, Giles Crawford, Erin Roseberry, Kriota Willberg (author of a book I recommend to every artist, Drawing Stronger), Mili St. John, Nicole Testa Laliberty, Peow2, Snailsprite…and more I’m sure I’m forgetting. Basically, it should be a great show!

I’ll also be participating in a group panel discussion on Sunday at 2pm with Olivia Fields, Diansahku Banton-Perry, and C.S. Garcia Martinez, all about robots! So, you know I’ll be talking about Maintenance, LOL. (This will also be recorded on youtube, so probably in the next newsletter I’ll throw in a link!)

OKAY ENOUGH PROMO, thank you for bearing with me. Onto other, but related, stuff!

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Like I’ve been talking about and sharing elsewhere, I have a new comic! I had made it to apply for the MICE mini-grants (which, I didn’t get, but its okay), and made it in one day at work with stuff I had at work. (Also tried to keep it just to the black marker I was using, with minimal editing/sketching). It was a really fun experiment honestly, like a game jam but for comics (or a comic jam if you will). Here’s an exclusive spread for you all:

TBH my job has been getting slightly more tolerable, I think because it’s a short term thing generally speaking. But…the sentiments still ring true. I’ll probably throw this up on itch.io in January/February. Also *maybe* *hopefully* would like to have some kind of online shop again, I think I’ll have to start smaller just so it’s more handleable for me. We’ll see…

Broadly I have been painting and making things, but tbh it’s slowed down in the past few weeks. The daylight savings change really messes with me every year, and this year is no exception. Here’s crops of two paintings that are basically done…but not quite lol:

And while I love the act of painting, and I’ve been enjoying the paintings I’ve been making, I just…don’t know if I super have the “painter’s temperament”, whatever that means. Something about painting in particular makes me feel very insecure (when it comes to sharing it publicly, like in a gallery space). I think the ideas that I’m most interested in exploring just…idk, feel small or wrong or not “deep enough” when it’s viewed in that way. I’m also constantly worried about people misunderstanding me, and so I think more longer form narrative work (comics or prose) allows for ideas to kind of brew and form in a more complete way than a painting and artist statement can (FOR ME!!!). I’m also just kind of dreadful at writing artist statements lol…I think artists have said enough, thank you very much!

I also do just feel like the audience I’ve cultivated thus far is not really the same group of people that can spend hundreds or thousands on one painting (lol) which is okay because I can’t either! I prefer the accessibility of a comic or book or something (both in terms of price but also in multiplicity). I feel like my ideal would be making my own books that are like Folio Society editions (so prose with pretty pictures throughout). IDKKK…this is all just a bunch of whinging honestly because I’ve been spending more time thinking about stuff I want to make versus actually putting the fries in the bag (proverbially speaking). Basically, I should be killed. NAH I’m just joking. But I hope to actually be making more stuff (most likely, comics or prose writing) soon.

I will be back before the end of the year to do some reflecting and sharing some things I’ve enjoyed in this terrible, terrible year, but until then, be well!

xoxo, court

Happy November, everyone! (I know it’s twelve days in already, shhh.)

This newsletter might be more on the short side, because it’s primarily to announce that (drum roll) my 2026 calendar is out! Yaaaay!

Here’s what you need to know:

• 12-month calendar (jan 2026-dec 2026), with an overview section at the front.

• Each spread contains: the painting of the month, a habit tracker, a notes section, and a blank Monday-start calendar to plan with as you please!

You can buy a physical copy here via Mixam Printlink—it should hopefully work internationally as well? (I think there’s geo restrictions for who can sell on there, but it’s hard to tell if there’s the same for buying—regardless, if you run into any issues, my apologies)

You can buy a digital copy here via itch.io (for using digitally, or printing out on your own printer):

AND, you can buy one of the original paintings on my bigcartel!!! Excited to be selling some originals, I haven’t done that online in a bit (and I really do love how all these paintings turned out)

I’m also uploading a youtube video today (at 3pm est) that shows the painting process for two of the paintings here, woooo. I talk about some other stuff too, things about social media / art making that I’ve echoed here previously.

The covers are mosaics composited of pieces from all 12 paintings—it was fun to try to find ways to get the pieces to connect from one to the next, hehe. Also interesting to see what squares I pulled from where—I’ll include a screenshot of a few so you can see.

While I’m here, I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned between last year’s calendar and this year’s—both things that I’ve continued into this year, and lessons I learned to not repeat—in case you want to make a calendar of your own someday (or you’re just curious)…

1. Switching between vertical and horizontal formats is not useful in a physical calendar (lol)

I thought (when making last year’s, on my ipad) that switching between the two wouldn’t be a big deal…but lowkey it was in actual use, LOL. Or at least it was to me…getting it to balance properly (with the added weight of previous pages, making it different from month to month), AND having to have enough wall space for it to work in both vertical and horizontal mode…basically, yeah, won’t be doing that again. I standardized the layout to make it very easy to hang on a wall (but also, I think it can still work on a desk if you wanted to)

2. Double check the actual dates!

I was editing my most recent sketchbook tour video while also finishing up the calendar, and I noticed that I had dated a page “September 31^st” (a date that, notably, does not exist!), which then led me to double check my actual calendar spreads. And, lo and behold, I almost released this dang thing with 31 days in November (sobbing emoji). Rest assured, I’ve triple and quadruple checked it, so it should match up with what we Gregorian-Calendar-ly recognize as being accurate.

3. Prepare for six-week months

I saw another artist make a reel about this and it’s so real. Most months can be charted with five rows for weeks, but there’s always a few that’ll be SIX! Those bastards…shakes fist. TBH I find no matter what that it’ll always feel a little squished…because it is! But I think especially for artists who make calendars that have more decorated calendar grids (see next point), it’s something to keep in mind before falling in love with only a 5-week grid.

4. Balancing aesthetics and usability

This is something that I’m continuing to try and improve on, but in MY eyes, I feel like a calendar should serve two purposes. 1.) be something nice to look at, brightens up a wall or whatever, and 2.) Serve as a commonplace for dates, appointments, schedules, holidays, things to remember, all that…I tried to make my calendar do both, but honestly prioritizing the usability more than anything. If you’re spending money on a calendar, I want you to be able to use it like one! I want you to write on it, put stickers in it, whatever you wanna use it for…this is also why I tried to make the bottom halves as clean and open as possible, so you can fill it up with whatever you need to remember (or, if you don’t want to use it at all, you could fold it back over itself and just have the paintings with the habit tracker/notes). I think there’s also a utility for calendars that are basically just a print with a list of dates at the bottom—but, if including the full monthly grid, I personally like making it as usable as possible.

START EARLY

a. Ah, the oft-repeated and not-very-followed advice (at least for me), but its true, it’s true…not only for actually making the artwork, but documenting it, making the calendar bits, the cover, any extra stuff going inside it, exporting, uploading for printing, etc…I wanted to release it this past weekend, but someone at Mixam had to actually approve of my listing—and I uploaded it on a Saturday! But, no worries, it’s not a big deal for me. But yeah…spreading out the work versus cramming right toward the finish line usually works best, has anyone heard of this before?

That’s about it from me—thank you for reading! I’m still in grad school app hell so, I might be a little quieter this month…we’ll see. Planning on the next one being around the end of November/beginning of December, and it’ll have updates for me tabling at MICE. Please manifest me getting Hayley Williams tour tickets this Friday, I’m assuming I’ll need all the help I can get LOL.

Talk soon,

Xoxo court

Hoo boy, what a month. Many things which both filled my (remembers the date) trick-or-treat pillow case of happiness with candy and also sucked all the joy outta me like a vampire. I feel like the metaphor fell apart…a mixed bag, it’s been a mixed bag. Sigh.

Something I’ve been grappling with a bit more head on (especially in the second half of the month) is social media and my posting on it. I’ve purposefully taken a step back from it for most of this year, a.) because of my job that I hate and that sucks and is depleting the life from me and b.) because I didn’t like the way posting was making me feel (about myself and my art, which are kinda intertwined in my head ← don’t do that, probably).

Next week I’m doing a talk for a class that’s about social media and using it for art, and that’s made me reflect on my (checks watch) twelve years of posting art online. It’s brought me a lot of joy (and reached so, sooo so many more people than I ever really conceived to be possible), and yet I do also think it has warped my own mindset on “success” and “satisfaction” with the art I make, because it’s so easy to conflate it with analytics and numbers. When numbers go up, it feels good! When they don’t…they don’t!

I think also because art making is quite solitary (at least the type I make), having something not get pIcKeD uP bY tHe AlGoRiThM and therefore not seen by many people feels bad! (As if it’s high school gym class and I’m getting picked last for kickball or something, like it’s a purposeful rejection). But this also is mostly in my head lol. It feels like “failing,” which raises questions like: according to who? or what? who cares? I hate thinking this way because it makes it feel like I’m only making art to go viral or something, which is not true! My best explanation is that when a piece of art is attached to some sort of measurable value (being: likes/comments/follows; money, ie. copies sold of a comic or something, etc.), I find it difficult to not connect the two.

ALL OF THIS BEING SAID, I’m trying to be more active again across my various places #myplaces. I’m trying to treat it as more of a…socio-anthropological study or experiment than anything. Also I do just, ENJOY making art and I like sharing it for people to enjoy as well. This includes fanart for things I like and #serious original artwork and #silly comics—it’s all me so I wanna share it! …I also would like to return to just art-ing in some form (or mix of forms) to support myself financially, so that’s part of it as well. I’m trying to do this while also not feeling too…I dunno, scummy? While doing it. I don’t want to become a walking advertisement, and I don’t want to only post to sell people things. (But, also, to get people to buy things you have to tell them that it exists…sigh.)

Part of this experiment has been trying out tiktok again. To be so real, I think that app actually hates me. So I won’t be doing that going forward I think <3 I’m excited about making longer form videos on youtube again, hoping I’ll have the stamina to be semi-consistent with it (planning on uploading a sketchbook tour next!)

ART UPDATES:

The 2026 calendar is almost done! All the pages are painted, I just need to assemble the actual calendar-y bits. I’m really happy with how all the paintings turned out, and I hope you like it too :) WILL be available soon, aiming for the next week or two to launch…

I made a new comic to debut at MICE! It’s about me hating work and I made it during one work day with stuff I had at the office. I’ll share more in my next newsletter, but I’ll give you a taste here:

I’m painting-maxxing currently because grad school apps are rapidly approaching (head in hands). But I’m really excited with where that work’s going, so I’m looking forward to sharing more (gotta make it first though LOL)

AS WE SPEAK I’m working on this Ash Williams painting to hopefully post today…here’s it in it’s current state (its ~80% done rn I think). Erotically charged AND spooky, my two favorite things.

THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN BRINGING ME JOY

MUSIC: twenty one pilots (i know, i know); don broco (saw them on tuesday and they’re so good?); ezra furman (saw her last week, also very good); my chemical romance’s debut album i gave you my bullets you gave me your love

BOOKS/MOVIES: i’ve been ira levin maxxing—read both the stepford wives and rosemary’s baby (and watched the movie for the latter), all of it’s really great! and strikingly resonant to today despite being over 50 years old. also just read the compound by aisling rawle and enjoyed it more than i thought i was going to, would recommend. i have not been movie maxxing, they’re gonna take my cinephile card away :( </3

GAMES: been playing ball x pit and slay the spire…I LOVE CHOOSING BETWEEN THREE THINGS!

OKAY THAT’S IT FOR NOW! i gotta go do other stuff. wishing you well until next time, and i hope your halloween treats you well!

xoxo court

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HAPPY OCTOBERRR!

Somehow it’s already here!! Very happy about this (for halloween reasons), but also because it’s officially the start of SHORTBOX COMICS FAIR SEASON, WOOOO (confetti and kazoo noises)

Of course, I must promote myself, which I shall try to do quickly and gracefully: my new comic RY CARPENTER HAS A BAD DAY can finally be read by people, such as you! It’s a quick and silly time about getting a band together (and putting Ry through a bad day, as the title may suggest). It’ll ONLY be available at the fair for 2025!!!!!! So if you want to read it before next year, ya gotta get it here, Oct. 1 - Oct. 31!!!!! (I will make physical copies next year, TBD when though). You also get access to behind the scenes stuff, and a walkthrough of how the band came to be (from a “creating characters” perspective, you already know how the band gets together).

If you HAPPEN to be in the market for picking up more than just my own, I wanted to give you some suggestions! The amazing thing about SBCF is that there’s sooooo, so many comics. As a contributor I’ve also gotten access to a lot of the other great comics in the fair, and this is a non-exhaustive list of some stand-outs that I’ve had the chance to read so far. But, like I said, there’s SOOO many, so please peruse (after you’ve added Ry Carpenter has a Bad Day to your cart and checked out, of course ← a joke, if it isn’t obvious ← just kidding please buy my comic).

I’m going to organize these by length (which generally corresponds to price as well), starting with the shortest. Beyond that these are in no particular order—I love ‘em all! I’m also a believer in going in without spoilers, so I’ll keep my praise non-spoilery. Check out the individual links for descriptions from each author! And none of this is sponsored, ofc…hopefully that’s obvious lol. I’LL BE MAKING A PART 2 toward the end of the fair, I haven’t gotten a chance to read all the ones I’ve wanted to yet.

FUNSIZE (like mine!)

THERE COMES FOR YOU A DAY by Artyom Trakhanov - 20pgs

As an enjoyer of Things that Look Good, I was soooo so excited for Artyom’s comic, and it didn’t disappoint. Every drawing and page of his is just a visual treat, such great linework throughout. I have an Evil Dead II print from him that I love, also…just great stuff! This comic is a great example of how atmospheric and energizing B&W can be. Absolute cinema.

Sharpie’s Mission of Rage and Justice by BENNIZONE - 30pgs

Looooove Benni’s work always, and this was no exception! I think Ry and Shapie could queen out together. Another more light-hearted and unserious comic, with really gorgeous pages and panels. If you like my work, you’d probably also like Benni’s.

The Fall Machine by Elisar Haydar - 19pgs

Elihir and I have been mutuals for a while, I’m so excited we’re in the same SBCF this year!! I love the kind of dread and mystery that they’re able to evoke, it gives you just enough to chew on without overexplaining everything.

The Seven Beaus of Miss Clarissa Bliss by Ash Green - 34pgs

Very cute and sweet little comic. Love the style of it, very dainty. And plus there’s monster talk in it so, that always adds points in my book.

On Love and Lepidoptery by Simone Stehouwer - 28pgs

Very sweet. I love women. And wizards. And wizards who are women (who have crushes on each other).

Meteor by Marcello Caiti - 38pgs

Another pick maybe for the artstyle more than anything else. I don’t gravitate toward action-y comics usually, but the action in here is so fun (and beautiful!) to read. Also comes w/ a French translation, for anyone qui parlent français (← I google translated that, sorry if it’s grammatically incorrect. Yo sé más español TBH.)

MEDIUM-LONGS

Vernissage by Marta Michalik - 41pgs

Such great and expressive drawing in here. And FUNNY! It made me laugh out loud! Its basically just about a guy who needs to pee, and letting the drawing take you along for the ride.

The Luminary Lark-Mirror by Casper Phan - 52pgs

Takes a fascinating real-life fun fact (about NYC banning pinball from the early 1940s-1976!) and turns it into a beautiful, surreal fantasy story about an engineer working on their magnum (pinball) opus in a world that’s outlawed pinballing entirely.

Rorabus Goes Home by Chalky Wong - 66pgs

Maybe it was just the day I was having when I read this, but it made me tear uppp. Has a really satisfying switch-up that completely changes the tone, and works sooo well. Really love the cartooning and coloring in this, a feast for the eyes!

Puca by Travis Chen - 59pgs

Another one that lowkey made me tear uppp. It’s very cute, okay? And dialogue-less, which is hard to pull off, but I think Travis does a really good job with it here. He just wants to be a blacksmith!!!!

Tropisms by Vincent Lau - 56 pgs

Big year for butterfly-related comics! (And by that I mean, there’s at least two). This one was really awesome, gave me quasi-Annihilation (the book, haven’t seen the movie adaptation yet) vibes.

Mission Report on So-called Humankind by Checula - 54pg

This one took a few pages for me to get into it, but once I was in I was innn. I really enjoyed it. Something very satisfying about how they draw people—hard to explain beyond that, it just scratches my brain.

SUPERLONGS

Ladies of the Living Princess by Theo Stultz - 177pgs

AMAZING how much Theo was able to get done for this fair, like holyyyy. Another really interesting story focused on women, specifically in sort of a convent/nunnery type deal. The colors throughout are really beautiful and the whole story has a great gothic atmosphere.

Let’s Fail Art School Together by Zoë Gray - 165pgs

Another one that I’m so impressed by the length of (it was a struggle getting my 30-40 pages done, LOL). Also just very real, for any of my other art school people out there (whether you graduated or dropped out)

JOY by Serena Cirillio (appletoast) - 125pg

I’ve lovedddd Senera’s work for years now, and this is no exception. Another one that made me cryyyy. Just very sweet and real overall. I heart robots.

Jiffy by Chris Kim - 128pgs

Equally very silly/absurd and heartfelt?? Made me cry (again)???? Perhaps this speaks more to the mental state I’m in than the comics, BUT this did move me regardless. The art is simple and so effective.

OK, that’s a lot of comics. I’ll let you go do your homework (buy my comic and other comics if you’re feelin’ fancy), and I’ll be back toward the second half of October to recommend some more and do my usual newsletter updates.

Until then, happy reading!!!

xoxo, court

[Dracula voice] Good evening…

(To be honest, stolen valor—I’m starting this at like 11am).

But hiiii, hello. Once again the cruel cogs of time continue to crank onward, and somehow its already ALMOST MIDWAY THROUGH SEPTEMBER?? (I literally started a draft of this back in August, fml)

It’s been so long, too long in fact-sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been doing a lot of Thinking and Making and Thinking About Making (and Going to My Job I Don’t Enjoy and Making Meals and Sleeping…also Traveling I suppose), and I just haven’t had the brain cells coalesce enough to sit down to write another newsletter. The DVD logo has not hit the right corner of my skull, sorry to say.

I also feel like I want to maybe have a separate blog for more rambley and introspective thoughts, and then use this as a more “””””official”””” newsletter? (as official as any of this can be, I’m truly playing with toys honestly). Just so that way I have a Thing that people can look at to see what I’m up to, and then if they want more they can go over to the blog or something. (And that way, I could post a little more irregularly on there, and keep some sort of schedule newsletter-wise). Again, not ready yet, I’ve been too exhausted from the Everything going on to be so real.

Here’s the big stuff that I want you to know:

RY CARPENTER HAS A BAD DAY COMES OUT NEXT MONTH!!! YAAAAY. I’m actually feeling excited about it again—to be so real, the method in which I had to grind out the comic made it to where the last thing I wanted to think about was them (do not recommend!). But now that time has passed and I’ve seen MCR twice on their current Black Parade tour, I’m missing my girls again. I’m going to try to simultaneously promote the comic as much as possible while also not making it too painful for anyone (you or me, LOL)—so expect to see some drawings, maybe.

It’s only going to be available at the Shortbox Comics Fair!!!!!! (For 2025). Which is October 1st-October 31st GMT aka British Time, I think. It’ll be available next year at Some Point (digitally, and hopefully physically??), but for this year, ya gotta hop on the website. It’s going to be £6 with 38 pages of Content, and I hope you enjoy it. For October’s newsletter, I’ll put some other comics in the fair that I’m excited about too—there’s a lot of great people making a lot of great work, honestly I’m just happy to be here lol.

Also, I’m part of a big sticker book project called DECALMANIA! It’s currently still funding on Kickstarter right now. It’s got 72 artists and over 500 stickers, and I got to make four of those 500+! If that sounds like something that’s up your alley, I’d definitely recommend snagging a copy! Here’s a newsletter-exclusive preview of all four stickers, mwahaha:

I wanna make youtube videos again! I started making a video about finishing some paintings (and reviewing an easel I got—oh yeah, I got an easel, that’s another thing that’s happened!), I need to film the conclusion and then edit it. (TBH my iPad’s been slogging a bit recently, which has hindered this…need to back up and clear out some files I think). BUT another video I’d like to make is about the making process for RChaBD! (<- terrible acronym, sorry). I have timelapses from a lot of the pages, so I may break it up into two videos or something (don’t want to spoil the comic during the month of the sale, ha).

I’ve been painting a looooot. I’ve become the paintler. I’ve also been applying to some juried shows that are local—IDK if I’ll get into any, but it’d be nice! I’ve unfortunately been thinking About painting more than actually painting, that task switching can sure be difficult…but, here’s some glimpses at what I’ve been making (along with those two at the beginning of this newsletter).

Lowkey, I’ve been thinking about separate websites/instagrams(?) for my FiNe ArT pAiNtInG. IDK, that’s very speculative. I do want to share my painting work, but also I feel a little silly posting it in between drawings of Gerard Way (but also, I don’t want to stop drawing Gerard either, so…idk). Perhaps crvptozoology will be the illustration side of my practice..? Or it’s the combination of both, with a separate one for only the “gallery” stuff? IDK man, it’s hard. I’d probably be crossposting/doing that co-authoring thing on Instagram anyway so, I’m just spitballing here. But, at least that way people who just want the paintings (and grad schools looking at my social media, cough) will be able to have that. I don’t know!!!! I know nothing!!!!

I’m going to TRY (key operative word) to make Some Sort of Calendar for 2026. It’s not going to be pin up horror people, sorry to report (that was very fun though, of course). I want to make a painting of some utility poles which would involve painting a lot of smaller paintings of utility poles (and then cutting them up to Frankenstein them together), soooo I could basically do that and make a calendar from it. I definitely learned a lot from making the 2025 one, so I want this one to be even easier to use!

I also got into MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo, not that I got into the concept of mice)! TBH, I’m like 20% tempted to turn down my table because of my busy-ness, but I think I’m going to end up saying yes, sooo. Let’s operate based on that. It’s on December 5^th and 6^th in glorious Boston, Massachusetts. That’s also why I wanna make the calendars, so I can bring some there maybe. Beyond that, IDK how much super new stuff I’ll be bringing, I think it may end up being similar to what I brought to CAMP in April. (I’d make physical copies of RChaBD but I think I’m not allowed to sell it until 60 days after the fair ends based on the contract I signed, so…those will have to wait until CAMP 2026). Might make a little zine for some of my fav books from the past year? We’ll see…I need to actually accept my table first before I get too involved in planning lol

~Personal Updates~

I did see My Chem twice, in New Jersey and Boston. It ruled, ya should’ve been there (or maybe you were?). I thought the NJ show was already awesome (c’mon, the lineup—Thursday AND Death Cab for Cute AND THEN My Chemical Romance?), but THEN the Boston show was even better somehow. (Well, I kinda know how—I was in the pit finally, instead of nosebleed seats. IDLES were also really great, idk how I wasn’t familiar with their game before this). I heart live music, and I heart MCR. I have Ideas in my head for some sort of writing about their current tour and nostalgia/hauntology (and using these live shows as a really abstracted form of sequential narrative), but will I have time to actually write it? We’ll seEeEe.

I made stickers to trade with people in Boston, here’s the haul I walked away with. I think it’s very sweet, this kandi/making-stuff-to-trade thing. Means way more to me than a $90 sweatshirt I can buy or whatever. I’m planning on making some more stickers when I go to (cough) twentyonepilotsinbangor.

I’ve been doing a lot of Thinking (some could say, Overthinking, perhaps), and trying to reflect on myself and my Needs and Wants or whatever. I think doing this (in part) has reaffirmed for me the importance of making things, though maybe not in the same way that I’ve done it before. To be so real, I’ve kinda realized that most of the art I’ve made (at least since like, midway through high school?) has been made under the context of what I feel like I “should” be making, whether that’s in school or thinking about who will care about it online or want to buy it or whatever. So trying to parse out why I actually want has been challenging. I still don’t fully know, tbh! I think these thoughts probably need more space elsewhere to type about, but I wanted to be vulnerable for a moment with you pixels on my computer. My whole life’s been dictated by “should”s in my head, and it’s like, according to who??? Or what??? Why do I hold myself to standards I don’t hold anyone else to??? So, I’d like to work on unlearning that and saying, “fuck that, I’ll make the art I need to make, and if you don’t like it, look somewhere else!!!”. Even that ← feels a bit corny to type because I haven’t embodied it yet, but I think the sentiment is true. Fake it til you make it or whatever.

Good stuff I’ve been reading: Sellout by Dan Ozzi, The First Bad Man by Miranda July (have like 20% of this left, no spoilers!!!), Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp, Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

Good stuff I’ve been looking at: Alucarda (1972—tbh, my movie game continues to be quite low this year); Kristof Santy, Dana Schutz, Mads Maudsen, Kouta Sasai, George Bellows…lots and lots of painters

Good stuff I’ve been listening to: Relationship of Command by At the Drive In (actually soooo fucking good), Pirouette by Model/Actriz (just discovered them, really fun and dark, dance-y music), …Breach by Twenty One Pilots (fork found in kitchen; genuinely probably their best record since Trench at least), and a loooot a lot of My Chemical Romance (spoon found next to fork in kitchen). Also a lot of Tiny Desk Concerts? Specifically: IDLES, Billie Eilish, Turnstile…Also also the new Hayley Williams record?!?@?3

This is sooo long so, thank you if you made it all the way down here. See you in October, AKA Saints for Girls month!!! Be well until next time!

xo, court

July has basically like, completely slipped me by. But, y’know. I’m still here. And, I’m still in the finishing-comic mines (it’s at the like, 95% percent mark—this weekend should be it!), so I don’t have anything new to share with you all yet. So, instead, I wanted to gush about some painters I’ve been looking at recently :)

As I think I’ve mentioned, I’m gonna be trying to bang out a lot of paintings/drawings for applying to grad schools this fall, sooo I’ve been immersing myself in a lot of (looking at) painting lately. Once this comic business is behind me, I’m really looking forward to having the creative energy to put toward some new things! (I’m happy with how the comic turned out—but, it has just been a bit exhausting on top of my job job).

Anyways, the artists… (note: for these galleries, I recommend clicking on them to make them bigger, if they’re being cropped)

#1 - Matt Bollinger

While this list is not weighted (not trying to pit any bad bitches against each other!), I’d be lying if I said Matt’s work was not the most captivating to me right now. I could literally put his whole website in here but I think Substack would throw up. Matt’s work just…resonates with me—the subject matter, the colors, the forms and texture. Artists that make you grip your hair in despair and say “fuuuuck, why am I not painting like that??”

I saw that middle painting, Engine, on tumblr a while ago, but only recently connected it to the rest of his work. Among the formal aspects, the way he plays with these dreamy colors and the way he organizes the elements on the canvas, I think the thing I appreciate the most is how he’s able to elevate these mundane scenes without necessarily romanticizing them. I think it’s a tricky balance, being able to capture people that feel real (without glorifying them—they feel grounded despite the attention devoted to them), and doing so in a way that’s still captivating.

Can’t say enough good things about him! Looking at these (and the other artists below) is making me realize I need to paint bigger…yearning for canvasses bigger than the size of my iPad, lol.

#2 - Morteza Khakshoor

I think one of my favorite aspects about Morteza’s work is how…structural and scuptural all his forms feel. The way he chooses to push flatness or dimension, and do so while creating these really beautiful forms and colors…great stuff.

As a “drawing folds in fabric” enjoyer, his paintings are so sumptuous to me. So many excellent examples of fabric folds, whether on clothing or on drop clothes behind his figures. Again, hard to find individual examples to put here—I think his whole body of work is really amazing. A really great blend of the abstract/stylized and the natural.

#3 - David Park

One slightly more historical example for you. I discovered David’s work through seeing his painting “Boy in a Car” on tumblr, and that brought me down a delightful rabbithole of artwork. It’s such an interesting point in (American) art history, when artists like David and Philip Guston who were fully working in abstract expressionism rejected the subject matter entirely, and pivoted back to figurative painting. But, those paintings still had the same spontaneity and discovery of their abstract work—it creates a really lovely combination, even if their contemporaries at the time weren’t rocking with it.

I checked out a book from the library all about David and the lifetime of his work, and there’s just so much inventive stuff. Again, hard to distill to just a few images, but I’m picking some of my favorites to include here :) I love the way he plays with form and color, and the markmaking is really stellar to.

So these are just three of many, but I’ll probably do another installment of artists I’m looking at in the future! Let me know if there’s any artists you’re loving lately, I’m always lookin’ for more.

I will see you at SOME point in August (the first half is busy for me, not gonna lie—so it might be another late month installment like this one). Until then, be well (or as well as you can be 🤪)

xoxo court

Time once more has been completely slipping through my fingers. Summer (northern hemisphere voice) starts today??? I’m gonna be 25 in a week?? The year’s almost half over?? AAAAAH!

Simultaneously it’s been a Good Art Month and a Bad Art Month. Good because I’ve felt way more excited about art making than I have in like, the past six months, honestly. (Will expand on this below) Bad because I still have so much fucking comic to make still in the next month 😭😭😭 ITS GONNA BE FINE…but I’m starting to feel it. I literally have no one to blame except myself (and my fulltime job I guess sdlkjf)

I have 10 pages currently finished so…I need to lock in basically. Admittedly I’ve been working on other art outside of the comic so, July’s gonna be Saints for Girls lockdown. I was working on the cover mainly today but honestly it was making me mad. I think I just need to focus on the pages for now and then return to it. I just don’t knowwwwww >_<

(You may notice I’ve also incorporated some green into the color palette! It’s helping with the Twilight Sparkle-ness, I think.)

In terms of the other art I’ve been making, I’ve been painting! (And making a lot of plans for more paintings, more than I have time for at the moment 😭). I wanna keep it to myself for a bit longer, but I can show you some of what I’ve been cooking…

I’ve been mainly thinking about horror and fear/anxiety, and also the lines between artifice/real and authenticity/performance. I’ve also been thinking a lot about rubber halloween masks, lol.

I alsoooo finished a commission for a DVD slip cover which I’m excited to post about 🙈 I don’t think I can say for who or what, but I’m quite happy with how it turned out! (I think it’s getting approved by the film distribution company right now…so hopefully they’re happy with it too, haha!) I’ll put a little snippet here, I’ll go into more detail once it’s public:

I alsoooo need to make my meet the artist for next friday…😭 We’ll see what that ends up looking like, lol. I didn’t loooove how my one from last year turned out TBH, though I don’t even really have a plan for this year’s. It’s always a struggle thinking of what to actually put on there…I try to mix it up year to year, just for the people who’ve been around for a while.

The reason why I’ve been painting (/planning) so much is because I’m intending on applying to grad schools in the falllll 🫣 for painting programs, mainly (there’s one illustration program that looks awesome and vaguely feasible funding wise). I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, just because I know those programs are super competitive…but also I reallllly would love to go back to school without paying a bajillion dollars. So I’ll be sharing more about that as the months go on!

Okay, I gotta go actually do stuff! I was planning on doing a midmonth newsletter with artists I’m enjoying recently, but then the month kinda slipped away from me. So, we’ll try that again next month!

ONE LAST THING—if you’re local to Portland, Maine, I’ll be part of a comic reading at the Apohadion on June 25th (aka Wednesday as of writing)! I think I’ll be reading from OH…HUH! but I might read from Maintenance instead, we’ll see…

Okayyyy…may you thrive and perservere from now until next time. And happy fuckin PRIDE!

-court

Hiiii everyone! Happy Mayyyy. As the title may suggest, I’m currently in the full thrall of pre-moving madness (My actual move is Saturday—I’m staying in the same city, but just across town), and it’s the exact type of activity that kinda makes my brain short circuit. (And also makes me reckon with how many fucking BOOKS I have). BUT!! Crvptozoology world keeps spinning regardless.

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Gonna break up my updates for you into three sections, starting with:

1. Comic stuff

Shortbox progress HAS been made! I’ve settled on the brushes I wanna use for inking and coloring (at least for now—I’m hoping it doesn’t change, but weirder things have happened haha). Decided on kind of a risograph-y two-tone palette, to at least have some fun with Some color without having access to the full spectrum.

At first I thought I wanted to use my tried and true risograph palette (from when I still had student access to MECA&D’s </3), which is medium blue and fluorescent orange. But, that kind of candy apple red/pink is such a crucial color to S4G’s visual identity, it felt wrong trying to make a comic without it. I thought about skewing the lines more greenish to get kind of a dark teal, but virtually it was lacking the punch I wanted, so I went for this indigo-y purple instead. I also didn’t want to ape the look of John Hendrix’s THE FAITHFUL SPY completely (which uses red, teal, and black)—though, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Looking at these crops now, I’m a liiiittle worried it’s gonna come across as like, too Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, HA. That was unintentional. Perhaps I’ll add in a third color (*gasp*), or I might go back on my word and tweak the colors…we’ll see!

But yeah—at present, 3/33 pages are fully finished 🫠🫥😵‍💫 so, some locking in will be necessary. Though, the first page (the second crop I put in here, I think it’s like page 13 in the comic) took me a loooong time, because it was me trying to figure out the style for the rest of the pages. So, I’m optimistic that the pages will come quicker now. I just gotta put the fries in the bag, so to speak.

2. Goals for the next month

Along with all the other stuff goin on, I’m taking a summer class on sentence style that starts tomorrow1, so I’m gonna try to make some approachable goals for myself…

• Re-establish my workspace in my new apartment (I’m equally as bad at unpacking as I am packing, tbh. I’m not sure why, I just find it hard to settle and make a space my own. But, I saw something which spoke to that, and the jist of it was “when you look back on this point in your life, would you want to remember it as a bunch of cardboard boxes?” So I’m gonna try to maximize my new space, even if I’m not sure how long I’ll be there.

• Make the cover for the Shortbox comic. I have a vague idea of what I’d like it to be—I also think I want to paint the cover physically, for funsies. But, all my paints are currently packed away…soooo sad </3. I also need to make the cover so I can start promoting the comic itself, ha.

• I have some freelance work that I NEED to do in the next month so, that. When I can talk about that, I certainly will.

• More pages!

• It’s my birthday next month so I would also like to do a new meet the artist, since I’ve been doing those annually for a while now

So, that’s what you can expect from me! I’m now going to talk about twenty one pilots [siren sound in distance] so if that’s a no for you, see you in June!! Be well until then!!

3. I went to the beach that makes you old and they were playing Stressed Out there

Congratulations, if you were older than like 14 years old in 2015 then you’re offically OLDDD, because Blurryface is 10! Somehow!

It’s funny actually, because looking back in my digital art folder for 2015, there’s waaay less pilots art than I was expecting. Admittedly, 2015 was a BIG year for annoying people music (I can say that, I was annoying as a 15 year old)—American Beauty/American Psycho, Badlands…crybaby…that one Troye Sivan album (honestly, the only one I’m not rocking with at all anymore is crybaby)…lots of music. I think the most distinctive blurryface art I actually made in 2015 was this one:

Truly, it is Remarkable how different my art is now than it was then. I guess a lot of things are different between these versions of me, ha. If I were to give past me some critiques, I think one of the biggest would be to look at more varied types of art for inspiration. Part of this is because I didn’t grow up going to galleries or anything, so a lot of the inspiration for my digital work were people in the same fandom circles as me. So, I think it all kinda suffers from a similar…plasticy coating. A woobify-ed sort of filter. You can tell I watched Steven Universe and couldn’t rationalize drawing a grown, adult man (said with love).

I might also say “loosen up a bit” and “draw from life” and “stop inking with a round brush for the love of god,” but we got there eventually. If you didn’t see it, here’s the piece I made for a little anniversary collab on instagram:

I’m quite happy with how the new one turned out! I think it would’ve blown 15y/o me’s mind that my art would look like this some day—I don’t say that to try to gas myself up, but I think just looking between the two, there’s quite a valley between them stylistically.

From the jump I knew I wanted to do something related to the Fairly Local mv, not only because it was the first of this album cycle (and because I remember where I was and who I was watching it with), but also because I think it’s such an interesting point in their history. Pre-their meteoric 2016 hat trick of stressed out/ride/heathens. I found myself thinking of the quiet, the uneasiness. There’s so many people waiting for your next project. You have no clue how people are going to react to this thing, but you gotta follow through with it and make it anyway. It’s something I find myself relating to now more than I did as a teenager, anyway. (And honestly something I need to internalize and do—LOCK IN!!!!!)

I also wanted to celebrate the patterns/nod to the graphic design of the album itself, and so I had a lot of fun with that. I feel like the chaos of the patterns kind of communicates that buzz, or that hope in your chest when you want people to like something you’ve made. I mean, obviously they had fans before Blurryface (I was one of them), but I think there was a level of ambition that hadn’t been seen in their previous work when it comes to the overall vision and storytelling.

Is Blurryface a good album? I don’t know! Honestly, I can’t even pretend to give you an objective answer. I have no true sense as to how it sounds to a pair of fresh ears in the year 2025. But, it sure does mean something to me, quality aside.

If you indulged me this far, then thank you very much, haha. I will see you all in June!! Be well until then!!

XOXO, court

Anyways, I hope you all are alright! Or, hanging in there at the very least. May we all keep hold of the single thread keeping us from completely unraveling.

Since we last spoke, CAMP (Comics Art Maine Portland) happened, and it was really great! The turnout blew me away to be honest, I had no clue what to expect. It was also ran really well, at least from my experience (and from talking to other vendors/attendees) — sorry to say, no drama video incoming with a title like "The WORST comic fair EVER!!", quite the opposite.

It was my first time tabling as my own entity (though, I was in a room filled with a bunch of peers and friends, which was nice), so I was trying to like, prepare as if I was going to war or something. Honestly, I'm glad I did, I feel like everything went relatively smoothly! Things I learned:

1. If you use the Square app to ring someone up, don't turn off the screen while it's processing (accidentally gave someone some free stickers this way, lol)

2. Make sure to stay satiated/hydrated (I was kind of just grazing throughout the day and felt like such crap…until I ate an actual meal of substance, and then I was fine LOL)

3. Being able to break cash is sooo so valuable, whether its for you or another person vending. (IDK how it is outside of the US on this point, to be honest)

4. BUSINESS CARDS!!!! MAKE BUSINESS CARDS. Even if they're just silly crap ones like these ones I had to resort to. Not only for people attending, but for other artists who are tabling there!

   

5. "Networking" really is important. It is ultimately just talking to people though LOL, I feel like the conception of it gets really mysticised and obfuscated. Just talk to people! Talk about whatever! If you make art basically of any sort (except for like, theater? or if you're in a band I suppose), it's a pretty solitary profession—so, having excuses to have some face to face interaction is nice. (And also, it genuinely does lead to more freelance gigs, if that's what you're looking for—I don't RECOMMEND networking exclusively for this purpose though. I think people can tell when you're only talking to them to get something, to be honest. May or may not have gotten a gig from some banter…stay tuned for a future update)

Here's the haul that I got! Some I traded for, some I bought—very excited to have them all. When I move next month, I wanna upgrade the way I store/display all the zines I've accumulated…gotta make my own little zine library.

And speaking of comics, work on my Shortbox comic has officially started, yaaaay! To be SO real, I should've started earlier. Admittedly, a.) the comic I'm making isn't incredibly big (its ~33 pages of real comic, with some extra content in the back), and b.) I work quickly in the grand scheme of things. Also c.) with the current state of the world, it’s a miracle anyone is still standing. But I digress. In my head I was like "I didn't start working on Signals until May, so I don't need to start yet!" …But that Shortbox deadline was Sept. 1st in 2022, and its August 1st this year, so. LOL. BUT ITS OKAY, its okay.

I'm sure once the comic is out, I'll do a proper deep dive into the making process, but for now—have some no-context thumbnails into SAINTS FOR GIRLS: RY CARPENTER HAS A BAD DAY!

The thumbs are all done, and the text is all written out. The next step is gonna be to lay out the pages at the proper size (/with the text actually included on the page), and then it'll be sketching time. I want to do color SOOOO so bad…also in my head I'd like this to have more of a painterly vibe than my comic work tends to have. But. again. Time works against me.

Despite my worry about actually getting it done in time, I'm really excited about where it's going! Not only is it checking a box that I've wanted to for a long time (actually making a Saints for Girls comic instead of just drawing them separately all the time, ha), but it's also pushing the boundaries in terms of what I personally have done in comics so far (like this one actually has dialogue! And more than 1-2 main characters!).

By this time next month, I hope to have some sketches to share, as well as a style test or two maybe, to see how I actually wanna make this thing. But yes, Saints for Girls will be real!!! Yippee!!

I posted about this on my patreon a while ago, but if you wanna make comics, one thing I can't recommend enough is studying the layouts of other comics. Here's some studies I did of Emily Carroll's A Guest in the House, which I looked back to when I was ripping my hair out trying to make these S4G thumbnails. (Phenomenal book, btw—highly recommend!)

Being able to see how other artists handle pacing and panels and amount of text/its size/location is sooo so valuable. I need to do it more, and also with some other books—so many great comics out there…I did these in notability for the convenience, but you can literally do them in anything or on paper or napkins etc. I like notability because I can't fuss with it too much—can't rotate the page or do anything super crazy—and so for the sake of laying out panels and writing and getting the building blocks down, I think it's really useful. But yeah, not necessary to use whatsoever. In the Emily Carroll studies, the colors indicate the type of text (dialogue, narration, other stuff); in my S4G thumbnails, they indicate who's talking (Ry is pink, of course).

I wrote out the dialogue for all the bubbles on the right of each spread, script-style (but I've cropped them out here because I'm evil, mwahaha). I tried writing out the whole script first, but I dunno…I find with comics at least, I need to work on the writing and thumbnails simultaneously. I feel like for me, intuiting how many panels and text is on each page needs to happen in a space where I'm SEEING the pages, otherwise it's hard to gauge how it'll actually look (/if it works well) when it comes time to making the comic itself. But also, I can't do JUST thumbnails, I need to have the text that'll make it to the page (or pretty close to it, at least), so that I know how much space it'll need. Badly formatted text in illustration drives me NUTS—I don't have the space to rant about it today, but TL:DR; if you're including text in something, formatting it well is just as important as the craft of the rest of the piece itself.

I’m also the only one working on the comic, so I don’t need to worry about an inker being able to interpret my sketches, or need to worry about someone else getting the imagery from my writing. I like putting stage directions sometimes though, for any particularly rough thumbnailing (lol), or annotating things I want to remember for the cleaner sketch phase (flipping panels, for instance). Also like drawing out floorplans for spaces that show up for multiple pages/panels—I drew one out for the record shop Jas works at, as well as for Ry and Vincent’s apartment.

That’s about it from me for now! I’m gonna try to lock in and get going on this, so that way I can lock in on writing a longer project (just prose, not a graphic novel thing—it’s that doppleganger one). I’m also moving next month, sweats nervously. But until the next time, be well!

xoxo court

I'm here with a mini update in between the monthly newsletters, to talk about the little event I'm tabling at on Saturday! (I know this newsletter has a hypothetically global audience, so I'll try to make it interesting even if you're not in the area.)

First I’ll talk about the new stuff—the zines!

1. The movie zine (good)

I say good as in “movies I liked”; I know some of these (mainly Trap I guess) are hit or miss 😭 BUT its my zine!! I get to do what I want!! (see zine 2)

I wanted to explore different forms of one-page zines for CAMP, so this one’s a zig-zag-y 16 pager!!! Here’s what it looks like unfurled:

This format’s fun, though kind of unruly to actually flip through. I think the more standard 8-page variant is more structurally sound, buuuut it is fun to have kind of a little morsel-sized book. (If you were to print it on bigger paper it’d be less fun-sized I suppose, but I digress.) Here’s a better view of her folds (sorry I said it like that):

I’m quite pleased with how these ones turned out! I think my printing of them was hit or miss, but that’s okay.

2. The movie zine (bad) (aka the slop zine)

I haven’t made a fun little promotional video for this one, my bad 😭 but I’ll post the pages separately here:

I honestlyyy have no clue if any of this particular zine are gonna sell, but that’s okay. It’s made from the heart. AND it has this poster on the back:

If you’re like “who the fuck is Neil Breen,” do yourself a favor and get on that immediately. I think his first film Double Down is a good place to start, though Fateful Findings is maybe his most well known. Most of his films are on archive.org—start slopping it up NOW!!! Whenever I do make my writing site (/make part of my current site that? IDK honestly), I gotta make a write up of all my slop best hits. The ones I mention in the first page (beyond The Special (2020)) are Vampire Boys (2010) and Byte (2024), respectively.

The non-poster parts of this zine were all done on paper! With some whiteboard markers, which was fun. They’re a good substitute for sharpies—they’re kinda smelly still and will and bleed a little bit on paper, but kinder in both regards than a permanent marker.) The back was all painted digitally and then ran through a ditherer—this in-browser one, specifically, it’s great! This zine is basically a normal eight-pager, BUT the fold amounts are flipped, giving you these skinny little pages. Fun! Oh what wonders can be conjured with one little piece of printer paper…

I did also print more copies of maintenance, yippee! The file set up was annoying but now that it’s done, they were pretty easy to put together (though the stapler I was using was making me maddd!) There’s a couple orange variant covers (because I ran out of pink paper, lolll)

All the other stuff I’m bringing is stuff that’s been on my shop before—Signals and OH…HUH! and stickers—but a lot of it I haven’t sold in person much, so that’ll be fun! It’s my first time really selling at my OWN table, so a bit scary, but also exciting!! (I say “my own table,” but I’m actually splitting it with HG Bradley, who’s also a great artist!) There’s a ton of great people who will be there, past teachers and friends (and even people I know from the internet 😱). I genuinely have NO clue how many people will actually show up lol. But, I think April’s newsletter will be a reflection on the whole thing, both the prep and the aftermath hehe.

Okay I’m reaching the email limit so I’ll leave it here—have a great weekend everyone! Talk soon, xoxo.

-Court

I can only speak for the Northern hemisphere folks (and honestly probably only Northeast *n*t*d St*t*s), but hoooo boy, I can feel the spring coming!!! We gotta BELIEVE!!! Losing an hour of sleep is worth being able to come home from work and have some sunshine out, for real. (Even though it's still windy in Portland, but hey, it's always windy).

Anyways, how are you? How's your month been? Are you holding in there?

At this point I would say my preservation style has been to just keep my head down and putting the fries in the bag, so to speak. I've been fortunate to have some highlights—my partner and I celebrated our anniversary which was lovely <3 and I've had some rewarding friend hangouts and trivia nights—but I would still say that I'm like a yard away from crashing out in a spiritual sense. May I offer an all timer post in these trying times:

But yeah, it's. Y'know. We don't need to dwell on that here.

I said to myself at the beginning of the year that I was going to try routinemaxxing, but honestly, I'm not sure if that's Really going to be happening because:

• I'm gonna be moving in May! (Staying in Portland, don't fret my lovely Maine friends). To be so real with you, this is a blessing, a.) because my partner will be moving back up here, yippee, and also b.) I have been dealing with like, biblical plague shit in this apartment. Fighting the war against P*** P******, if you know you know. My upstairs neighbor likes to push around concrete blocks and hammer nails into the floorboards and listen to the same 30 second electronic music loop very loudly—presumably, this is all conjecture. And the roaches and mice etc. SO I'm looking forward to being in a different place, even if apartment hunting and the act of moving makes me want to rip my hair out…

• I'm taking a class this summer? It's an English class, about sentence structure—it sounded fun and useful to me, and the people at work I've told about it just said "…huh!"

• I also MIGHT be changing jobs again, depending on how a second round interview goes next week…please have me in your thoughts, because I think I'd enjoy it a lot more, and my bus rides would be a lot shorter lol.

I suppose that right now I HAVE been routinemaxxing, but the routine is like, mostly spent doing stuff I don't want to be doing (sending emails/sitting at my job desk). I miss being able to set my own schedule! The other day I found myself missing my old paintbar job, which is when you know the devil is talking. Like...noooo. I may miss parts of it, but I also like being able to like pay my rent without ripping my hair out lol. (I also just got a settlement check because apparently they got brought to court for not paying wages correctly (ALLEGEDLY)??? LOLLL) But yeah, that being said, I feel like I really don't have the full time worker's temperament…hoping the locking in will allow me to pursue some more creative pursuits again. I'm just taking it a day at a time to be honest.

I'm now going to list what I know will be happening soon, and what I'd like to be doing soon…

THE DEFINITE’s:

1. I WILL have new things for CAMP! I'm gonna do a newsletter right before that weekend with my full offerings, but yeah, at the very least ONE new little zine, but hopefully two. I have 'em all sketched out, and the lines done for like 1/3 of one. They're both movie related, here are the themes:

1. (continued) They're gonna be like $2 at most—I wanna have some more affordable stuff alongside the more professionally printed books and stickers, haha.

2. I GOTTA do a sale on my online store—again because of the moving, and also because it's about to renew so I gotta take advantage of it lol. I’m noooot sure if I’ll be able to ship internationally anymore, with all the fuckshit going on—I’ll do some research on it.

3. I'm like 99% sure that my ShortBox comic is actually just going to be a silly Saints for Girls one, mainly because I think I'm gonna be busyyyy. But also because that sounds fun to me, and I wanna have fun with it :) No clue the length—I think it's gonna be their origin story (or at least part of it), but that might change once I start plotting it.

4. I also made this little Jimbo from Balatro for my friend Jay :) look at how cute he turned out

   

   1. It's the first 3d thing I've made in a loooong time, and also one of the few that I actually like the look of! He's wonky but I love him

THE MAYBE’s:

1. I thiiiink I wanna make an actual BLOG blog. For making little posts. I love my tumblr of course, but I view it as more of a scrapbook/social media thingy more than anything. I really think that novel writing is in my future (see below point) and so building up my web presence as a writer and not just an illustrator is important, maybe, I guess. So I could throw writing/book related stuff on there without spamming you all on here, and also maybe other like professional/art life stuff. That way these newsletters can be more recaps than anything. I dunno, we'll see!

2. I'm WRITING. Or by God, I'm trying at least! Right now my efforts are kind of scattered, hence the title of this newsletter. I've been struggling with sinking my teeth in, because of all the other stuff I have going on generally. But, I'm genuinely really excited about it, so I need to make the time and put the words on the dang page. I don't want to give away too much about WHAT I'm writing, but to give you hints

   1. A doppelgänger story (this is the novel rn)

   2. That thing I was talking about last time about the guy making himself a computer a la The Fly (short story)

   3. How to Perform a Divine Autopsy (also a short story!)

      1. To be honest, I'm finding it hard to pick which to actually focus on. I want to finish up the short stories (or at least get them to a critiqueable state, they're both halfway done at the moment), mainly for applying to grad schools if I still want to in the fall. Buuuut…my doppelgänger story (a) is more on my mind. I think following through and actually finishing a draft of a novel would be greatly beneficial for me, and also it's a fun storyyy…we'll see.

It's possible that it's just the hipster in me shying away from anything as soon as everybody's watching it, but I'm nervous for how Severance s2 is going to end…there's some aspects about this season (second half in particular) that have me missing my s1 friends from MDR. Alas, it is what it is. I saw Eraserhead last night at the local art museum, and that was lovely. It was great to see that film again, and big and loud (though, could’ve been louder to suppress the throat clearing and chip bag opening, sigh). I NEED to see Mickey 17, hopefully on Tuesday…

Still been reading, which has been fun! Feel like I haven't read a ton of outstanding stuff recently, but two that break that pattern which come to mind are Salt Slow (Julia Armfield I loooove your work) and My Life as a Teenage Slasher (gotta get more into Stephen Graham Jones). Did you know there's two novels named "We Used to Live Here" by two different people which came out two years apart that have basically the same plot description? I'm reading the earlier one now, and it's kind of ass to be honest. I'm interested to see if the second is any better.

I've been listening to The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, it's a really valuable podcast if you're interested in writing and/or publishing. I also just like hearing about other people's work and people giving critiques to that work, that's so fun.

Anyways, may we all lock in during these trying times. I'll be back around the first week of April to show ya what I'm bringing to CAMP. Until then, be well <3 thank you very much for reading

-court

Admittedly, part of this newsletter is to hopefully escape the crushing weight of the passage of time, at least for the art side of things, so I’m NOT gonna harp on the lateness!!! I'm going to try to structure these with part yapping, art related or otherwise, and then the art at the end. I'll also try to put some other art that I've been enjoying, sprinkled throughout.

PART ONE - THE YAP

I don't know if you guys have heard about this…but it seems like shit is at least a little bad to EXTREMELY bad for everybody right now. So strange, I wonder why?

No, but seriously, like just about everyone else in my life, I've been kinda going through it. Beyond the obvious stuff 🙃, part of this for me is having to get used to (drum roll) working a full time job. I just passed the two month mark at my job, and its been pretty good! I somehow got an email/spreadsheet job, who would've thought. (That's also why this lacks my usual informal lack of capitalization—hopefully this hasn't ruined the glossy, cool guy demeanor for you). The worst thing about it is the full-timeness of it, honestly. Not trying to doxx my exact work location but, it also involves ~45 minutes to and from each day on the bus—great for my reading habit, but still a time suck. And, I'm also TAing for an illustration class at the college I went to, which has been really great! …But, all of those things combined means…I have so much less time for everything else, basically 😭

This strangeness was compounded by my top surgery in November. (It all went well, thankfully! Still so, so grateful for anyone who picked up something to help me with that). But, part of the healing process for that was that I consciously took a step back from making art. It was like a month long do-nothing vacation. For a long, long, looooong time, I think the motivating factor behind my art making stemmed from some form of anxiety. (I say "stemmed," but I think it's still present, tbh.) I continuously feel guilty for not working, which feels especially silly in this case because the "work" is like, drawing Helly from Severance playing Balatro.

But its true! Of course that's not the only motivating factor, but a lot of the art making I've done has stemmed from that sort of mindset. To quote Paramore, I'm always running out of time! Everything comes second to the pursuit of making art, even if it would be like, good for me or beneficial to do other things too. There's a couple ways that this manifested:

• Trying to keep up with the grind of social media—this is a big one, especially when I was starting out building my “platform”. It's fun to post something new and see people's responses to it! (But also a double-edged sword—we can unpack that more in another one of these).

• Keeping up with any commercial work—almost any freelance art I've done has had the deadline of around a week, lol. Of course, there's exceptions, and my experience is not indicative of the entire industry, but a lot of mental schedule gymnastics has to be done to keep up. (Comics are kind of tangential to this, though obviously with the scale of the work, the deadline/work time scales as well…though I'm not sure if the ratio gets better, necessarily…)

• Trying to keep up with my own self promotion—basically the two above mixed together. I think this is where I personally feel the passing of time taxing me the most, I'm just never good at that sort of foresight/planning for making art. I think to be successful as a small business owner you have to be able to see the macro view of the year, and to be able to plan launches that coordinate with the big seasons and holidays or whatever. Ya gotta start making Valentines Day stuff in December to be able to order the items to get it in for January to be able to promo it for February—multiplied by how many time-dependent products you want to make, forever basically lol. Very Sisyphean to me. I'd also throw the work related to running my Patreon in this category. I made a long post on there kind of in the same vein as this one, but I found that having to "keep up" with it (making the art for the postcards, shipping out the postcards, making enough art to "justify" people's memberships, in whatever sick and twisted meaning of worth I had in my head lol) exhausting. That's not to say I didn't enjoy any of it, I really did! But, again, still exhausting. I've paused it for now, and it's been a great decision honestly.

In the case of my post-op recovery, I didn't want to risk that sort of repetitive activity messing with the recovery process, so I didn't put that pressure on myself. And to be honest…it was kind of nice! Removing the sudden death, racing against time aspect which motivated my art making has allowed me to do other things, like reading, and writing (both for work and for leisure). The tough part is, of course, that I still consider illustrating and painting a core part of who I am as a person, so having much, much less time to devote to it feels kind of soul crushing.

I think something important to remember (and something I keep trying to tell myself) is that our priorities can shift and change with time, and they'll shift and change again, and that doesn't mean that we're abandoning this core part of ourselves. It honestly might mean that we get to hone parts of ourselves to that same level that art making is at—OR, it could also literally just be about surviving from one day to the next and finding whatever instances of joy we can. The sands of the hourglass keep moving no matter what, both to our detriment and to our benefit. I find myself frustrated that I don't have the same amount of time to create art on the day-to-day, but it won't be like this forever. (HOPEFULLY!!!! PLEASE!!!)

As long as some art is being made, even if its baby steps compared to marathons you ran before, that's a good thing. I miss the ease in which I was able to commit time to drawing when I was in high school, but also I was doing a lot of unhealthy things (among other things, drawing and going on Tumblr instead of basically anything else as soon as I got home, going to bed early to wake up at 3am to do the homework I should've done the night before but couldn't for Some Unknown Reason. ← This is executive dysfunction btw, I just didn't know it at the time). Like, did it work? Yes, technically. But was it the best way to do it? No, probably not. So at this point, if I can find a little bit of time to paint something or to write, while working and getting enough sleep and moving my body and doing my dishes and stuff, I'll take it. The world will keep spinning, and I'll keep making things, even if not at the same scale as before.

(I wrote the above a couple days ago, and am now trying to wrap it up for actually posting—in the mean time, I was kinda spiraling about the state of the world, tbh. I don't have the answers for everything (my ideal outcome involves a Scanners head explosion scenario for a long list of prominent people!!!!!) but all I know is that I'm gonna try to keep making shit until I die, and I hope you do too.)

PART TWO - THE ART

So as you can maybe guess, haven't done a ton of art-ing recently. It is what it is, I'm trying to make peace with it. (Said with gritted teeth) BUT, on the horizons, I do have two particular art events on the horizon which I'm participating in…

1. I'll be tabling at CAMP (Comic Arts Maine Portland) in April! Specifically, Saturday, April 5th. They just updated their website to have the exhibitor list and the map! IDEALLY I want to make some new little zine or comic for CAMP…key word ideally. I'm also going to try to make more copies of maintenance—I'm thinking whatever I end up making could be bundled with maintenance, but again, I don't know if it'll actually happen. I'll try to lock in to make some new stuff haha.

2. I got into Shortbox Comic Fair again this year! I don't believe they've released the official list yet for who all is in it (IDK if I'm technically supposed to say I'm in it yet??), but I'm really excited to have the opportunity to participate again. I'm starting to cook on what I want to make, though I don't have much tangibly to show you now. It's gonna have some wires and some guts, probably, maybe. I HAVE an idea but I actually think it's going to change before I have anything meaningful to show for it…but trust and believe the thoughts are there. I was thinking it would be fun to paint it with actual paints…and COLOR (gasp)…would that be kind of crazy, maybe, but I also think it would be really fun.

In terms of art I've actually made…I'll be honest, a lot of it has been Severance fanart. We can yap more about "fanart" in another newsletter (maybe whether or not its an actually useful classification/lens to view art), but yeah, it's true. I've been trying to prioritize more analog methods of art-making, mainly just because my new job as led me to looking at a screen for a big chunk of my day. But also, the Woe's Hollow piece I made did remind me how fun it actually is to make art digitally LOL. Analog and digital art can be friends, we don't have to pick sides!!!!

I've also been writing a lot more! I think from a mix of reading more, and also from wanting to be able to convey longer ideas that would destroyyy my arm if I tried to draw them. And it would take like a decade (and probably not convey what I wanted it to in the first place). There's something about writing and sharing my writing that makes me feel so shyyy…(kicks my feet or whatever). I guess I've been sharing my drawings since I was like 13 on the internet so, I've had more time to build up the courage. I've been bouncing around a couple things, maybe next time we can talk more about that. I think an idea that I had for what I want to do for Shortbox might work better as a short story instead?? Along with the other routinemaxxing in my life, I'm also trying to build up the writing discipline to actually follow through with a writing project. There's something about sharing a current project that (for me!!!) almost kills it before its even born. But I'm also just being dramatic lol, I'll see if there's a way for me to share more about the writing stuff next time.

Other than Severance, here are some things that I've enjoyed in the past few months…

BOOKS: The Secret History by Donna Tartt (INCREDIBLE—I've tried reading it like three times before and couldn't get far enough in, but man, what a book. Trying to wait before reading Donna's other books to be able to savor them more), Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (I've heard great things about its screen adaptation as well, but I'm glad I was able to read the book first. Kind of gutted me like a fish…in a good way!), From the Belly by Emmett Nahil (My mutual Emmett, yay!! Really inventive nautical horror, AND there’s gay people, wow <3), The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (such an unbelievable story, told in a really engaging way. I find the topic of art theft to be really interesting TBH—planning on reading more books about it, will report back if any of them are noteworthy), and Educated by Tara Westover (again, INCREDIBLE. I cannot imagine what it was like to live through what Tara has. But not only that, the way it's written is so visceral and impactful. I'm struggling to articulate the words to show it praise but, it's really good, basically.) I've read more than this, but I'd say these are the highlights. I just updated my Storygraph to reflect all the current reading I’ve done, because I hadn’t updated since last year…we’ll see how long I can keep up with it 😭

MOVIES: Conclave (the fandomication of it is a bit baffling to me, but it's a beautiful and engaging film regardless); Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (FANTASTIC—I had kind of a big W+G moment right at the start of the year.); Barton Fink (John Turturro is such a great actor, man…but also, this film is really great. I thought I could anticipate where it was going, but it really surprised me. Very pertinent for any creatives out there); Double Down (Honestly, Neil Breen is unironically kind of living the life that I'm striving for, working to make the money to make…whatever I want. He's an auteur for real—nobody's doing it like him); and Wild at Heart (just watched this the other night—really great stuff. Not my favorite Lynch, but the performances and directing really do speak for themselves. Need to revisit all of his films, rest in peace). I AM good at logging my films on Letterboxd though so, if you wanna see all the stuff I'm watching, it's over there.

See you all at some point in March! Be well, until then. (or at least, try your best)

xoxo, court

i’m cooking up a proper wrap up entry for the month of january, but welcome regardless to my newsletter. i’ll assume if you’re here, you know me from other places online. but if you don’t, i’ll introduce myself :)

my name is court, i’m an illustrator and art person. i live in maine currently, i love horror and wires and paint and balatro. so far, i’ve mainly focused on people and comics, both in digital and traditional varieties. i also do love sharing my art with other people—i’ve been posting my art online for over ten years at this point! and with that, i’ve realized i want to change how exactly i’m sharing that art, both for my benefit, and for yours.

so, if you’d like to join my newsletter, you’ll get monthly updates on me, my art, and other art that i’ve been enjoying! a bit of yapping, a bit of drawing, without any baloney we don’t want. this will be a place to talk about art and all the stuff surrounding it, without being associated with the Zucks and Musks of the world. YUCK!

i’ve stopped my patreon for now (for reasons i’ll probably go into in the next entry), so i want this to be a low stakes way to share peeks behind the curtain at a more forgiving pace. i’m aiming for loose monthly, so some might have 2, some might have none—i won’t clog your inbox, but i’ll try not to be a stranger, either. i’m cooking up some exciting stuff for this upcoming year, so i hope you stick around to hear it! prose! comics! paintings! and maybe more!

thank you!!!!

xoxo, court