MeCAF was a great time! Unfortunately a printing miscalculation meant that I didn’t have as many of my books in stock as I had hoped, but it was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with so many other people who love comics and to share my work. I picked up several comics I’m excited to read, some from creators I was already familiar with and some I’d never heard of. It was a good show and a great opportunity to take a few days away from work and spend some time wandering around Maine with a couple of good friends.
Issue 4 of Wits End is all but ready to share. I have some last minute editing to do, a cover to finish and files to organize and upload, but I expect to start sharing this story June 1, updating m/w/f until it wraps up towards the end of August. The PDF should be available on the 1st as well, so if you’re not a fan of waiting for comics to update or you like to be ahead of the crowd, you will be able to pick up the complete issue from my store.
I’ve spent the last three years in Vermont. I moved here to attend The Center for Cartoon Studies and didn’t want to leave, so I stuck around for a year after graduating. At times this past year I’ve struggled with feeling like I haven’t been moving forward, but ultimately I produced more comics in the year since I graduated than I did the second year of my MFA, totaling over 100 pages. I have had some wonderful times here and had the opportunity to seriously level up my cartooning skills and create work that I’m proud of, but I think it’s time to move on.
At the end of June, I will be packing up my life and moving to Chicago, where many unknowns await. This transition will push me out of my comfort zone and force me to rise to a new set of challenges. I don’t know what it will do to the timeframe for issue 5 and the other comics I’m working on right now. Sometimes I’m most productive when I have the least amount of time to work with, and a new place and fresh start may inspire renewed dedication to organization and creation of healthier, more productive routines. Or it could leave me feeling swamped and overwhelmed, and push my own projects to the back burner for awhile.
I am committed, however, to bringing the first full arc of Wits End to completion with the creation of issue 5. I’ve been doing a lot of brainstorming about what the finished product will look like and what changes I may need to make in order to compile these comics into a single book with five chapters. I’m really excited for that process, and we are so close. In an ideal world, I will have issue 5 drawn and posting online by the beginning of September, which will mark two years since I started penciling issue 1.
It’s been a great journey so far. I’m excited to see what comes next.