I promised when I slowed the website down that I would keep people up to date with what I was doing, comic wise.  In this past while, when you haven’t seen me working on comics, I’ve been working on some freelance jobs.  Just trying to become a better artist, picking up some jobs that challenge me.  Color things, mostly, I don’t have much experience with color (you’ve noticed?), and backgrounds (you’ve noticed?) and I’m trying to learn.  I learn best when there’s no going back.  As much as I love comics, I always thought the way I made comics for Hark! didn’t necessarily bring out the most of my ability.  This is for a few reasons, but probably mostly because I often took too much time coming up with something and writing it, and I rushed the drawings (relatively) in hopes of posting something ASAP, because I was always behind on the schedule I would have liked to keep.  Starting a new comic from scratch every time is a challenge I enjoy, but it’s a time consuming one as well.

So I’ve been taking time to write and draw without the comic website ever-present on the table, and it has been good.  I would like to be better at what I do.  I became popular fairly quickly without much experience to back me up, and I feel the learning curve sharply.  There are also those other opportunities I have mentioned, interested parties from different places, and possible jobs unrelated to comics, but nothing yet I can share.  Hopefully some will work out!  In the art world, you never know.  

Anyway!  What a mouthful.  Other than that:

You’ve seen that I’ve been tinkering with those long, tall narrative strips.  I’ve been thinking that I’d like to see the next book take a different direction than the last.  Not just a Volume II, but something new to offer.  And I’ve been ready to do something different as well.  I’d like to tell some stories that mean something to me, with a personal connection.  I was thinking of studying something like the place where I’m from, using comics, and you’ve been seeing stories about Cape Breton and the people from there for that reason.  I am trying to find the tone I’d like, and practice a different way of telling stories.  Collections of small stories that paint a big picture.  It’s the little moments that interest me, human, and funny, and sad, because that’s life.  Relatable, and real.  I figure now was the time to do it since I impulsively start drawing those stories anyway, and have sketchbooks full of little scenes.  If I made this book it would be a smaller think than Hark!, quieter, but I wouldn’t mind.  

So, I think while I mull this over, you’ll be seeing more of this kind of comic, as I figure out the sort of stories I want to tell, and how to tell them.  I don’t even know where to put them right now, they don’t really belong on the main website.  Even if I do not make this kind of book this year or the next, I probably will sometime in the future.  And I’m glad I have harkavagrant.com because I never want to quit it, if there’s a lull now while I shift gears, at another time it will slide back into my main focus.

That’s my update for now, I just wanted to keep you on the same page since you’re good enough to be here with me, still.