Here’s a trailer for my new book, out January 20th 2023, which is very soon! If you’re one of the very few people who supported its serialization on patreon, and you can read French, let me know and I’ll try to get you a copy—it’s quite a bit longer and better in its final form. Grand merci to Dory Bavarsky/Full Color Sound Records for the beautiful soundtrack, as usual.
JANUARY 23-31
I’m flying to France, Paris first, then Angoulême 27-29, signing the book at the Incestuous French Pedophile Convention Festival de la Bande Dessinée. Might probably have a signing or two in Paris and elsewhere before the fest—will pop back on instagram to post details when time comes!
READING OTHER PEOPLE
Here are a few comics recommendation from this year:
Anne Simon, Boris the Potato Child. A bit less subtle than the first two volumes, but the overall story is brilliant, incisive, and fun.
Teddy Goldenberg, Crime City Comics. It's not often that you come across a comedic voice that feels so totally unpredictable and strange. Rewards multiple readings.
Josh Pettinger, Powerwash. Another very unique bit of comedy that seems to exist in a universe adjacent to ours. I particularly love how his characters seem to have just one expression that barely changes—it creates such a bizarre, uncomfortably funny effect.
Anna Haifischi, Schappi. Lovely slim collection—I love the adult-picturebook format she’s been exploring, there just isn’t enough of that. Speaking of, Enchanted Lion’s kickstarter for their new line of exactly that closes today, and it’s almost there—please support!
Mikkel Sommer, Slik Miks. Mikkel is an artist of truly incredible versatility, and this is a collection of his more silly/playful comics, all bangers.
Giulia Sagramola, Summer Fires. Tender and evocative. Made me miss Europe a great deal.
There are many more, but these are the ones that particularly stuck in my memory.
UNION BROW
I spent most of the month teaching in Armenia—had a lovely time, despite the horrors on the borders that are still going unresolved and almost entirely uncovered. Pretty sure I’ll come back in the summer and try to spend more time in Dilijan this time. Enjoy some of the photos from the trip strewn around the post.
PORT-A-FOLLIES
I received a number of compliments for my redesigned website this year, and many artist friends told me they also felt tired of traditional squarespace portfolios. I’m not a professional web designer, but if you want to rebuild your site, and don’t know where to start, I’d recommend sketching it out on paper and asking yourself these questions:
What do you want from it? Professional promotion, or an online exhibition? A bit of both? For me, it was almost entirely the latter.
Do you want to present everything at once or categorize? This often depends on the variety in your work—many people like to separate genres/mediums, or personal/professional. My indiscriminate feed is very much a statement: I see my hardcover books as much a part of my artistic practice as my New Yorker trollings.
Following up, what’s the first thing you want people to see? Mikkel Sommer’s site is fully categorized, but the landing image shows a walk cycles of his various styles in conjunction. You can also use tags, the way Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva does—this way you can show everything at once, and also give the viewer the option to categorize themselves.
How do you want your site to reflect your aesthetics and personality? My work is tight and rough at the same time, and I wanted the site to feel the same way. Marcus Oakley’s site on the other hand is perfectly aligned, which works great with his geometric drawings (note that you can’t click on them). Anna Haifisch’s site is completely in line with everything she does—even the background colors are the same few colors she uses in her comics and prints, and the overall layout and type is similar to her book designs.
How do you want to display your images? I don’t just mean feed vs gallery, although that distinction alone can have lots of sub-variations (columns, freefloat, isolated zoom). You can display your images as straightforward pngs, you can give them frames and backdrops, you can scan them crappily the way I do, you can take photos of them, or only show them in context. It doesn’t have to be one of the other—Alexandra Zsigmond’s website is a good example of a combination of all those things.
Is your work meant to be seen, or read, or both? Longform or shortform, or both? Is the legibility/reading experience hampered by visual distractions? Does it work equally well on mobile and desktop? All of my stuff on the site is pretty short, and zooming in creates a 90% dark backdrop, which is a decent way to quickly remove all the crap I have scattered around. For a longer serialized thing that I want to do next I’m thinking of having a separate page. I know people do it directly via substack but something about it feels wrong, not having a central chapter hub, etc. Remember whatthingsdo? That was a really good way of presenting indie comics online—wish there was something like that today.
How much interactivity do you want? Since my work is tied to the process, it made sense to keep the site very tactile, bury some things under other things, and even have a hidden section (try clicking on either of the two circles on top). It can be much more than that of course—Erik Carter even has a special ‘collapse’ button that upends everything on his site. That said, if your work doesn’t have a collagey/combinatory quality, added interactivity can easily feel gimmicky. It’s the same as with editing—ask yourself whether this element does anything, or just feels like it’s simple there. Cargo’s clock feature is one such element—personally, I cannot imagine any reason to display current time on one’s website, although I’m sure it can be done.
Is it easy to contact you? Does it matter? I have a full-time job these days, so I’m happy to bury my email in a separate page. But this can be especially important if you’re building a freelance portfolio—remember that Art Directors viewing your site might have a million other bookmarks open, and you don’t want to squander their limited attention. Many artists put their contact email as a sticky button/text that floats over everything. You might also consider the ‘weight’ of your site for the same reason—both the visual clutter, and the number of things that have to load at once.
Finally, do you want to build it yourself from scratch, with a website builder, or hire someone? There are obvious pros and cons to each of these, and don’t forget to consider time as an investment. Myself, I ended up using Cargo Collective, since I was familiar with its earlier version, and it had most of the functionality I wanted (draggable images, nice fonts and templates). There are lots and lots of alternatives, though, and they might fit you better. Still, even with a builder and a template, it took several months to get it to some state of coherence. Good work takes time.
END POST
And that’s it for the year. Thanks for reading, subscribing, sharing, etc! Unlike the endless blur of social media, making a regular newsletter feels like an opportunity to look back and take account of what I’ve been doing every month. Sometimes it feels a bit lonely, especially since I disabled likes/comments, but do know that I very much appreciate your readership! And if you need more of my shitposting, follow my telegram.