He lives here? Cool!

So in a nod from the gods of creativity and inspiration, today I found out that Bill Amend, the guy that does Foxtrot, lives in Kansas City. When the paper came out, I looked for two strips: Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot. When Calvin and Hobbes rode off into the non-commercialized sunset, it meant I still had an amazing strip to look forward to. This is a relief, because there has been a tiny part of me that has been afraid that my creativity may be curtailed in an area where every waiter isn't waiting on their 'big break', but if this is where Foxtrot comes from, that excuse goes straight out the window. Although I haven't put together a stalker strategy just yet, it's on my list of things to do. Pictured is one of my favorite strips with Akeem and I (I mean, Marcus and Jason-I'm Jason because I, uh, wear glasses all the time, and Akeem is Marcus because he once dressed as Green Lantern for Halloween, yeah, that's it) as various superheroes.

Fire through the smoke

"Writing lets others see the smoke from the forest fires of our minds. Editing lets them see the fire through the smoke," a friend of mine said a few weeks ago, right before the cross-country move. It's true, and indispensable, but I never imagined that the joy that I found in writing and planning and crafting would make up less than 5% of the process. It's tedious and very time-consuming, but ultimately worth it. So, aside from a brief break to hop on here and reflect on this, I've been spending today focused on the (fingers crossed) final edit of the book, readying it for the April release. The picture here is what the actual pages that I'm working from look like. The biggest challenge is to not make errors as I enter the corrections (typos and so forth), which is a paranoid and daunting undertaking. On the plus side, it feels good to have such a lean, mean manuscript, especially when I look back at the previous drafts. I really want everyone's introduction to Forsaken Realm to be the smoothest reading process possible, so what else matters?

Mister Five-Dolla!

It's been a while since I've actually worked on a caricature seriously, but I recently was asked to contribute a gallery to my company's caricature manual in progress, and the only requirement (in addition to a handful of caricature samples) was to do a caricature of good ol' honest Abe. So this is mine. It's pretty tame, bordering on what I call a "portricature", but it was a good exercise nonetheless. This week has had me jumping from art, to excel, to email, to reviewing stuff for the book, and figuring out a loose schedule for the premiere of the book in April. It's an exciting time, especially as we settle into our new home in Kansas City, Missouri.

A new adventure!

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I moved to Kansas City Missouri. It is a drastic change from Southern California, but an exciting one. I decided to start this blog to have a repository for all of the stuff that I do, from my novel, to my caricatures, illustrations and other artwork, as well as nifty work stuff that I want to share with the world.
Thank you, California, and my friends there, for giving me three unforgettable years that will always stay with me and shape who I am.