1.
Finished the last bit of inks on THE SOLAR GRID #5 last night! What a whirlwind of a chapter. Started on the moon, jumped from there to Mars, and then to Tokyo circa 2019. Exercised some condensed storytelling while still managing to keep the flow easy breezy.
Today I’m working on a couple commissions. The one on the top left is for someone who asked for “anyone you want, as long as they’re female”. So I did a character from a future series I’ve been dreaming up. The w.i.p. on the right is based on a [totally pleasant] friend of mine, with the stuffed bunny in her arm based on a drawing by the commissioning person’s daughter! 😃
As you can see, I’m having fun playing around with some oldschool-style splashpage lettering, something I’d like to incorporate into future comix.
Slots for next weekend’s commissions are taken, but the weekend of May 16th is open if you’d like an original commission of your own.
That’s kinda my circuit now: weekends for commissions and weekdays for TSG. Next week I do colors for the parts of the chapter that need’em. Had scheduled myself to have ‘em done by May 7th, but that estimate was based on my having a working Surface Pen which has now gone bust. So all I have to work with is my trackpad now, which I imagine will slow me down some. Possibly by a couple days or so.
2.
My friends at WORLD WAR 3 ILLUSTRATED have returned to vigorously updating their Tumblr with new protest graphics and comix and things. I stopped using Tumblr when they went ultra conservative, but I still follow a few feeds through my RSS reader (Newsflow).
3.
Fellow WW3I contributor Jeff Wilson is currently running a kickstarter for a graphic novel on housing justice in Detroit. Based on interviews he collected over two years of field work, the book recounts stories of people fighting back and winning their homes from foreclosure, which Bambi Kramer beautifully illustrates.
If that’s your kind of jam, be sure to check it out!
4.
Guy got shot a couple blocks away from ours. Up to 10 shots from a rifle in a red van that sped by. Reports of a girl screaming “he’s dead, he’s dead” after it happened. Not sure what to make of it other than wonder why. Bet it won’t be a while before we find out, if at all. Is it weird that I still like the neighborhood?
Short one this week. Think of this as my way of checking in. I trust you’re all doing your best to keep it together. Stay strong!
And I’m out.
Ganzeer
May 2, 2020
Houston, TX
P.S. Just realized: we made it to issue #150 of RESTRICTED FREQUENCY! Milestone! Feels like I ought to do something special. How bout this: share this newsletter to the social media platform of your choice, send me the link, and I’ll choose one lucky winner to mail a care package filled with art and goodies and things. U.S. only though (sorry, fam, postage be pricey!).