Long-time readers may remember back when I wrote a long post explaining why I am not “going for it”, including an extended analysis of how abysmal the chances of “making it” are in creative fields and how crappy our social system is in terms of livability for us not-rich folks. Although, I suppose I did have the qualifiers, not going for it* *full-time† †yet.

So what gives? Didn’t I say that for me creative freedom is the most important thing in my art? Did I get so sick of ordinary day jobs (for many reasons) that I decided making graphics and content for corporations was worth it?

No, creative freedom is still essential to me. Though, I might do some selective collaborations/commission work if it aligns with me, we’ll see what comes up.

But I’ve been on (and am still on) an earth-shattering spiritual journey since last summer, and am finding myself called to leave the normal career grind to have more time for my spiritual and creative practices (in that order).

—you know, my debilitating, and terminal, food and contact allergies and intolerances, which I’ve had and which have been worsening at an accelerating rate over the last two decades, have almost entirely gone away over the seven weeks since I made this decision to change course...

Anyway, I know I’ll be writing and arting more to share about my spiritual journey in the future. For now, though, I’ll just say that I’m very excited for this new phase.

Today’s newsletter is all news from my art side as I’m announcing this new direction, but moving forward I will keep Zeno’s Arrow mainly about my comics-related activities and Way Lee Art (my new art business) will cover my art-related activities.

1. Check Out My New Art Website!

2. Sign Up for Occasional Updates From My Art Side

3. My Art Is In the Artist Trust 40^th Anniversary Benefit Art Auction

4. Do You Feel Lucky? Try to See My Piece In the 4Culture Art Carousel

Till next!

Check Out My New Art Website!

So what does this look like for me going forward?

I’m still in my day job at the moment. I plan to start phasing out of it this spring.

As for what I’ll be doing creatively, as I mentioned in my last post, since finishing The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics, I’ve been focusing on my on-location watercolor painting and life drawing/live sketching. The artistic practice is something that I constantly have an artwork I can go out and do, since there’s lots I want to work on in terms of the expressive language of color and improving my skills. So that’ll be the ongoing base of my artistic work.

I will be trying to exhibit at art walks and in galleries and cafes, vending at art and craft shows, and selling original artworks and prints and cards of my original works. And if collaborations come up that are in alignment with me, I may take on some of those projects, too.

And the comics will come in whenever I have crystallized ideas that really grab and inspire me. Like with my first three comics projects. As little money as there is in art, by comparison there’s none in comics (unless you are very lucky). But there’s an expressive range and power unique to comics, and it can share ideas that you can’t do with just one image. I know there are more comics/graphic story/illustrated text projects in me or that will be coming through me.

Anyway, I’ve launched a new standalone website to share my art with the world!

See my art galleries at www.waylee.art.

Sign Up for Occasional Updates From My Art Side

I know I know, another newsletter. But comics and art attract very different audiences, so I’d better just send separate missives for each. I can promise I won’t send many emails for Way Lee Art, though. The reason I sent Zeno’s Arrow newsletters with any frequency was generally when I was serially publishing one of my comics projects. And waylee.art is a website, not a newsletter like Substack. I’ll probably set up the blog on the website to share more immediate updates, if you’re curious. But then just send quarterly newsletters that bring together the highlights of what’s going on with my art.

You can sign up for my art mailing list at the bottom of the waylee.art website.

My Art Is In the Artist Trust 40^th Anniversary Benefit Art Auction

One of my Blue Period pieces (Leschi Marina) is in Artist Trust’s 40^th Anniversary Benefit Art Auction!

Artist Trust is a great organization that supports Washington State artists with grants and art business resources and trainings. I’m honored that one of my artworks was selected to be in their auction.

Tickets for the event are now closed...but if you happen to be going, you can see my piece in person there! And me, actually, I’ll be there, too!

Do You Feel Lucky? Try to See My Piece In the 4Culture Art Carousel

“Do you feel lucky?”

‘Cause sadly I wasn’t the four times I tried to go see my artwork on the screen at 4Culture’s Art Carousel.

Another one of my Blue Period pieces (Swansons Nursery Cafe) is in the rotation on the screens facing the street in their building in Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle.

If you do go, it should come up on the screen on the right-hand side. But I recommend contacting them the day you want to go to ask for precise times of when the artwork you’re interested in seeing is going to be on screen. The slideshows on the two screens just cycle all day, and they have the order on a list—but the extra problem is that the slideshows don’t necessarily start right at 7am every day, so you actually just need to ask them the day of.

But by the time I figured that all out, I’d already sunken so much time trying and failing to see my art on a digital screen in the winter cold that I didn’t feel like spending more time to see a digital version of my art on a screen.

Anyway, I’m still slowly looking to do a show at an art walk or cafe…when it happens I might share here (don’t want to spam), but definitely at Way Lee Art.

Here we are at the tail end of ‘25. I hope you’re getting to step away from the endless grind and have a season of peace and reflection. A moment of stillness at the Winter Solstice.

It’s been quite a year for many reasons for all of us! But here at Zeno’s Arrow we’re talking comics and art.

This year I created a whole bunch of comics and art that I feel really good about:

1. I finished telling the story of Blood of My Blood. Such a fun twist to write in the story and get to share it with you all—and get to hear from multiple readers how utterly surprised they were and that they loved the twist (“Obsessed!”, one reader said!).

2. I translated, illustrated, and wrote The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics. Maybe the coolest project I’ve done yet? I knew it was definitely unique when the idea struck me, and it’s been super gratifying to find that so many people in our community around Seattle agree that the project is fascinating.

3. I rounded off my Blue Period of on-location blue and brown ink draw/paintings (the first piece in the series was actually done at the end of 2024). There’s actually one more last piece in the series that I haven’t posted here at my blogsletter, yet! But it felt a little weird doing a post for just the one piece (that’d actually be fine, I’m sure, but), so I figured I’d post it when I have an actual show for the blue pieces to post about. Hopefully in 2026!

After finishing BOOK of DEATH and my Blue Period, I shifted gears to focus on an exploratory phase with my art for a while. I’ve been doing a lot of watercolor on-location painting these last two months, and that’s what I’m sharing with you in this next section, before wrapping up with a prospective look into 2026.

Watercolor is a daunting medium, difficult to master (hell, difficult to amateur) because of its unruly nature. The secret is to embrace the lack of control.1 Actually, truth be told, this was one of the reasons I was drawn to watercolor years ago: working with a medium whose very nature is looseness allowed me to let go of my over-preciousness with my art back in the day.2

I definitely never mastered watercolor in my earlier forays during college, and would say I still haven’t mastered it—but I’ve reached a new level of comfort and confidence with it after the past two months focusing on it in my outdoor (plein air) painting. It’s been a quick ramp up!

Here are my sketches and paintings in order from mid-October through mid-December:

What’s Next in 2026

I’m letting my comics side simmer while ideas for whatever the next comic project will be percolate. There’s no shortage of ideas that have occurred to me over time, but I only take up the ones that really grab me3 (one of the blessings of not relying on my comics for my survival). I started to get excited about what I was going to do with the Two Wolves idea, but that fell apart with the muddy history and apocryphal nature of its indigenous origins (see my update note and footnote on the last post).

I’ve got a couple small things pending that would be fun updates to share, but either aren’t confirmed yet or aren’t ready to share, so hang tight.

And my main thing right now is continuing my exploratory phase with watercolor! I’m really enjoying this, and there’s a lot I want to try out and develop/get better at around my approach with watercolor paintings.

Along with my focus being on my art right now, I am also working on the business side (le sigh) of the art. I plan to set up a website focused on my art separate from Zeno’s Arrow, to serve as my portfolio page, so look for that in the new year.

And with that, let’s sign off for the end of this year, and I’ll see you in the next one!

[UPDATE 12/5/2025:] Never mind about my ask below—turns out the origins of the Two Wolves story are a mess. Turns out my suspicions about the “Cherokee” origins were well founded. It’s not clear where the story actually came from. There’s a bunch of posts online exploring the true background of the story spanning thirteen years into the past, including a fair amount of plagiarism and lack of citing sources in these explanatory and opinion posts online.1 The characterization of the good vs. bad wolves’ attributes certainly felt more like a contemporary Western thing. In any case, it wasn’t the “good vs. bad” aspect that resonated with me. As you can see from the post below, it was the points that (1) the choices we make are like muscles we exercise, making it easier to follow the same path in the future, and (2) the deeper point that there is a similar meta-, societal effect that each of our behavior has on the people around us. So, maybe I’ll write my own story to illustrate those points instead.

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. Thank you for being here to read and view my art and writing, and the thought engagement that you share back with me!

I’m taking my time allowing my next comic project(s) to gestate. The one that’s risen to the top lately relates to the Story/Tale/Parable of the Two Wolves. Have you heard of this (very) short story? I really like it. I think it illustrates a fundamentally important aspect of people—and society.

Here are a couple versions of the story from a quick web search:

1. https://www.nanticokeindians.org/about/the-tale-of-two-wolves/

2. https://theacademy.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/two-wolves-cherokee-story.pdf

The point that our own choices about our actions end up being self-reinforcing cycles is an essential insight. And I love the metaphor of feeding the wolves because of how well it illustrates the effect of how each time we choose a path, we make it easier to do that again the next time. The wolf we feed is going to get bigger and stronger while the other one gets weaker.

My ask: if you’re familiar with a good version of the story, please send it to me!

I’m particularly interested in finding a more “historically official” version(s) of the story than all the many online iterations out there, if such a thing exists. And I’m suspicious of its common attribution as a “Cherokee” legend due to spillover doubts from excessive claims of Cherokee ancestry. Doesn’t have to be online—if you know of a version in a book I can find in the library, that’s great, too.2

There’s a deeper point related to this, though, which is that each time we choose a path, we also make it easier for the people around us to choose that path the next time. All of us set examples for each other. We set the tone and create the atmosphere that we all live in. So if people see and expect others to be selfish and cutthroat, they will say, “that’s just how it is” and behave accordingly. If people even just assume that others behave selfishly, they will excuse that behavior for themselves, too, with the excuse that “everyone else is doing it.” But if we see someone standing up to injustice, or opting out of a crappy system, it lets us know that that is a viable path. That we don’t have to just go along.

Another way to put it is that beyond our own personal good and bad wolves, there are two collective good and bad wolves that we feed or don’t feed with our actions, as well.

Sketchbook Share

And for now, I am continuing to focus on my art and trying to spend more time in nature, off of screens. I’m starting to get a good grasp of watercolor and be able to work more confidently with it! I still haven’t come to what my next series will be centered around, though. Exploration continues.

There was a steady flow of visitors throughout the day, despite the new location in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, outside of the downtown core.

I had by far my best show yet, with about three times the sales volume as my shows earlier this year. One thing is that having more products to sell increases sales since guests are more likely to find something they like. (I think up to a point—there’s probably a point beyond which you have so much on your table that people get overwhelmed.)

But the other thing is The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics was extremely popular and I sold out of the stock that I’d brought with me (should have brought more!).

Speaking of BOOK of DEATH, it’s now up on my Ko-Fi store, in case anyone isn’t in the Seattle area or can’t make it to shows and would like to buy a copy.

Sketchbook Share

Some more watercolor practice in Seattle’s fantastic local parks as I explore to find what my next series of paintings is going to look like.

Lots of updates for you today:

• See Me at Table F79 at Short Run This Saturday November 1!

• BOOK of DEATH Launching at Short Run November 1!

• Mentioned In the International Examiner

• Featured In John Burgess’s A History of Poetry Comics

• One Who Gave Up Mainstream “Success” for Artistic Expression

• Sketchbook Share

See you at the festival this Saturday!

See Me at Table F79 at Short Run This Saturday November 1!

If you’ll be in Seattle this weekend, swing by and peruse the biggest indie comics festival in the region! And it’s FREE to attend!

I’ll be at table F79, next to David Lasky and John Burgess, where combined we will make a haiku comics row!

You may not have known a haiku comics row was something you were interested in, but now that you do, here’s a map of the venue so you can find me. :)

Note that Short Run is in a new location this year—it’ll be at the beautiful Seattle Design Center in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle.

BOOK of DEATH Launching at Short Run November 1!

BOOK of DEATH is ready! Will be available to purchase starting on November 1^st at my table (F79, see the previous item for a map) at Short Run Comix Festival, and shortly afterward I’ll add it to my Ko-Fi store and stock a few copies in a few local comic shops.

Mentioned In the International Examiner

Oh look, I was mentioned (alongside a bunch of other Asian/Asian American cartoonists) in the International Examiner’s (local Asian American journal) write-up of Short Run Comix Festival!

I am honored to have qualified for “weird, unique stuff we haven’t seen before.” :)

Featured In John Burgess’s A History of Poetry Comics

I met John this summer when I was tabling at Hot Off the Press and still in the middle of creating The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics. Turns out he’s a poet and poetry cartoonist and had also stumbled upon Hoffmann’s book Japanese Death Poetry before, so my project resonated with him. He’s working on charting out the history of poetry comics over on his blog at punkpoet.net.

John ended up writing a post about The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics, which I think means I’ve made poetry comic history! Thank you, John!

One Who Gave Up Mainstream “Success” for Artistic Expression

Just a nice read about someone choosing artistic expression over mainstream “success” in the comics industry. I first learned of David Mazzuchelli when the teacher of my excellent college graphic novel class, the writer Alexander Chee (whose blogsletter is The Querent), read Phased and suggested I check out Mazzuchelli’s graphic novel Asterios Polyp because we both used color to drive the narrative in our stories.

Asterios Polyp is a great read about ego, self-absorption, and personal growth. It’s visually masterful, with Mazzuchelli effectively wielding so many facets of comics as a communicative medium to both tell a compelling story and wax philosophical, too. It also has a lot of humility about human fallibility, which I tend to like a lot in stories.

(Speaking of humility, I would by no means say that Phased is on a level with the accomplishment that Asterios Polyp is.)

I was really excited to learn of Mazzuchelli because he had hyper mainstream—superhero mainstream—success and left it behind in favor of personal expression.

Anyway, I initially only saw the superhero resume and Asterios Polyp, so it was cool to see this write-up of Mazzuchelli’s journey over at Cartoonist Cooperative.

Sketchbook Share

I’ve wrapped up my Blue Period and am now playing around with different approaches to do my next series of artworks in. (Oh, there’s another blue piece I haven’t posted yet...I guess I’ll give it a solo post.) I’m also trying to spend more time in nature and less time around screens, so this means that I am doing a fair amount of sketching in parks. Here are a few of my recent sketches!

Today’s post is quite different from any of my previous posts, but it’s something I’ve thought about for a while and think others would find interesting, so I’m taking a chance and sharing it. Hope you enjoy!

You’ve read or seen a scene in a story like this, right?

You and Timmy are messing around in the kitchen doing something stupid funny like trying to touch each other’s faces with your boogers, laughing and making a lot of noise jostling furniture around while you avoid each other’s deadly fingers. Meanwhile, Mom’s just trying to get dinner prepped.

Mom turns around and yells at you, “Stop that! That’s disgusting!”

You both straighten up, one pair of eyes on the ceiling, the other pair on the floor.

But once Mom’s back is turned, you start menacing each other with your fingers again.

“What did I just say??”

You flinch and jerk your grubby hand back. “How did she know? Does she have eyes on the back of her head??”

Now, Mom probably just knew that you were mischievous rascals, and could anticipate you would resume your antics behind her back—maybe even heard your movements.

But still, the prospect of being able to see in 360 degrees, all the way around ourselves, is both fascinating and incomprehensible. How? What would it even look like??

When we try to visualize very wide fields of view on screens and pages, we lean on lens distortions—like a fish-eye lens, to squeeze the wider vision into a small space. And for a 360-degree view, we might map all that vision onto a circular image, with extremely distorted edges of the circle to achieve a complete panoramic view.

But is that how rabbits and dragonflies see the world?

It seems unlikely that if you could see wider than a human’s field of vision, that the information would be squeezed into a flat two-dimensional proxy, the way we have to do it to fit the wider view onto our sheets and screens.

So what would it look like to see in all directions at once?

Let me tell you why I think you already know.

I Can See Wider Than 180-Degrees and So Can You

A number of years ago, I noticed that my peripheral vision was pretty darn good. Like, I could just barely see the person sitting in the passenger seat while I was driving with my eyes looking straight ahead on the road. Or walking down the street, I would notice someone was standing in a doorway or alley that just flashed by as I moved along.

I ended up confirming by testing with a friend that I could indeed see things, just barely, vague masses, light and dark, maybe a bit of color, slightly behind my 180-degree plane extending from the sides of my eyes.

Thing is, we also found that my friend could, too! At least, they could tell whether a light was on or not.

I finally got around to doing a little internet researching and it turns out that Wikipedia states humans have a little over 210-degrees of field of view. I’m not crazy! I feel both validated and a little disappointed that I don’t have a vision superpower.1

Why This Means You Already Know What It’s Like to See 360 Degrees

So what, William? I can see everything in front of me, but I still can’t see anything behind me. Big deal.

Ok, but here’s the thing: the fact that you can see two things on your left and right sides, on opposite sides of you simultaneously, means that you already have the experience of seeing things 180 degrees away from each other—

That’s the same as seeing things in front of and behind you at the same time!

To translate: if your eyes were on one side of your head instead of on the front2, your 210 degrees of vision would encompass things both in front of and behind you!

So, I would say that seeing things in 360 degrees, you would simply see it all around you, just like right now if you let your attention spread to both the left and right sides of your vision, you simply see it all around (the front of) you.

But I’m Having Trouble Imagining the Experience of 360-Degree Vision As Simply An Extended Version of Our Existing Vision

The edges of our awareness are strange, aren’t they?

There isn’t a border to the end of our vision. We would need to be able to see beyond where our vision ends in order to see that border. There is simply what we are aware of.

But consider this: there is natural variation among human beings in how wide our fields of view are. And those who have wider peripheral vision simply see more. It’s just there. Their “screen” just wraps a little further around the sides of their heads.

To take it a step further, there are animals with narrower fields of vision than humans’, and compared to their narrower vision, our wider field of vision is simply there, visible for us and inconceivable to them.

And then taking it all the way down, living things without any vision would be mindblown about what it’s like to see at all. And yet, when we open our eyes, there it is, our awareness simply includes all that we see. Like how when we hear, we’re simply aware of the sound, and when we feel, we’re simply aware of the touch, and when we smell, we’re simply aware of the scent.

Given all of that, and how we already know what it’s like to be able to see things in 180 degrees from our left all the way to our right, and naturally place our “selves” at the middle of our vision, I offer that with 360-degree vision, you would exist in visual awareness of everything surrounding you and place your “self” at the center of the view.

If other worlds of perception inconceivable to our human existence intrigue you, I recommend checking out Ed Yong’s fascinating book about animal senses, An Immense World.

1

Though, compared to other animals, we humans very much do not have visual superpowers when it comes to field of view. That same Wikipedia article also notes some birds have nearly or completely 360-degree vision, and this video from The Brain Maze shows a lot of animals with greater fields of vision than humans’. I know, random YouTube video, but at least its human and pigeon vision charts comport with the Wikipedia ones.

However, acuity and depth of vision is a whole other thing, with humans being second only to birds of prey like eagles, according to Ed Yong’s excellent book about animal senses, An Immense World.

Sounds like for new/emerging artists like myself, art walks and cafes/businesses are the place to start. And there might be a significant lead time required between reviewing requests/applications and when an artist is actually showing, so since I want to do my show next year, it’s probably time to start working on the framing and venue details. Stay tuned!

Here’re the next three in my blue series:

Back before the pandemic lockdowns, Leschi Marina was where I learned to stand-up paddleboard (SUP). I was there one-to-two times per week in the summer of 2019 learning with the Club SAKE SUP boarding group. I was hooked at the time, and had endless appetite for SUP boarding. Once lockdowns hit, I ended up getting my own board so that a few friends and I could keep paddling. Not so much these days, but do still enjoy the very occasional paddle.

It was fun going back this time to draw/paint. Capturing reflections on water is always a fun challenge and satisfying when it works out. I also liked observing how the masts all tilted in different directions.

Georgetown Steam Plant is filled with giant, heavy machinery, mysterious and fascinating features built into walls, lots of pipes running everywhere, and loads of atmosphere. I happened to visit the week before the sketch outing for a different event, and was excited to go back to draw/paint. The place looks like story setting. I knew I wanted to draw the towers and catwalk, and to render a lot of texture with my linework to imbue my piece with moodiness.

Ballard’s farmers market is a busy attraction every Sunday. This was done in the afternoon, as the market was clearing out, which is why I had a little more space to see down the avenue and draw. The street, Ballard Avenue, runs through red brick-paved Old Town Ballard, making the farmers market even more charming.

Here’s a sneak peek of what The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics is going to look like in print!

Looking at the in-progress preview shots from my printer, I’m so stoked to see the books in person once the print job’s done and to share them with the public at Short Run, November 1^st. And those copper staples. :)

And I’ve got another round of my Blue Period artworks coming your way on Tuesday.

See you then-

A quick note before we get to the sketches. I’ll be posting less frequently for a while now that I’m done with another book project.

I’m now working on all the behind the scenes stuff related to getting my work out there: submitted The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics to a couple publishers (very low expectation, but you never know); am in the process of getting it printed since Short Run Comix Fest is coming up and I hadn’t considered submitting it to publishers until the end of the summer; applying to other fests.

And beyond that, I’ll start working on the research and writing for my next big comic project. This is going to take some time (and I want to slow my pace for a while to recover from the Blood/Death1 blitz anyway), so while that’s going, I’ll still be doing urban/life sketching as well as short comics projects.

I do some very loose, silly comics for DUNE comics nights sometimes, too. I’ve shared them at my BlueSky account (@zenosarrow.net), but they’re so casually done that I’m not sure I want to put them up on this website/in this blogsletter. I dunno, what do you think? Check them out:

Murder on the Dance Floor

“Small things so sad that birds could land” - Lump, The Presidents

Would they besmirch the honor of the rest of the website? Or would you like seeing those as posts? Maybe they could stand as a mass share like I do with the sketchbook shares. I guess essentially that’s what they are—comic sketches.

Speaking of sketchbook shares, let’s get to today’s!

The Sketches

Today, I’ve got tons of people sketches for you, done from life, at a festival and on buses and beaches.

Enjoy!

But I’ve also got a few updates for you, so here’s what’s in today’s blogsletter:

• I’ll Be At Short Run Again This Year!

• Last Fest for the Summer Went Great

• Blue Period Ink Drawings Part 3

Alright, let’s get to it!

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I’ll Be At Short Run Again This Year!

Save the date, everyone, ‘cause I got accepted to table at Short Run 2025!

Short Run Comix Festival

FREE admission!

When:

Saturday November 1, 2025

11am - 6pm

Where:

Seattle Design Center in Georgetown, Seattle

Last Fest for the Summer Went Great

PhinneyWood Comic Book Show a couple weekends ago was the last summer fest for me this year. It went great! Even though it was the first time the organizers ever put on the show, it was well run and had good attendance with a healthy amount of interest in buying indie comics.

It was interesting and a little funny seeing the demographics shift with the time of day. Remember, this was a Saturday event that opened it’s doors at 11am (actually guests started filtering through around like 10:30am before the official start, but doors were open because we vendors were getting or already got set up). For the first hour, before noon, it was mostly seniors from the neighborhood, but after noon the crowd shifted to a younger demographic.

Sales started a little slow but by the end of the event, it was in line with other events I’ve tabled at. Thank you everyone for visiting my stand, checking out my work, sharing your excitement, subscribing to this blogsletter, and buying my books!

Blue Period Ink Drawings Part 3

Ok, on to the blue!

Today, I’m sharing three more scenes from Seattle and the surrounding region. The Seattle chapter of Urban Sketchers sometimes hosts outings outside of Seattle, so this quarter some of my drawings are from farther afield.

I feel like I’m now hitting my stride with this brown and blue ink series.

This marks three quarters of my blue period—one more and I’ll move to trying to put on an exhibition. If you’ve got any guides you can share or tips about how to do that, please share! Or thoughts about venues in Seattle that this series would do well and find a good audience in.

The iconic Paramount Theater downtown. I like how the blocky weight of the building contrasts with the curves of the Paramount sign and airiness of the clouds in the sky behind. I resisted pulling out my straight edge despite all those straight lines on the building because I want to develop a looser approach. I already got to take a crisper approach with some of my drawings earlier this year, and now it’s time to push the expressiveness more.

I really like the echoed angles and swoops of the roofs in this piece, sweeping you from the upper right to the left, then sliding your eye back the other way with that lower roof on the left, down to the tree and the people on the grounds below. The avenue between the buildings is open to your eye and invites you in, and then you reach the child pointing up at something, leading you back up the curve of the barn roof again.

Also, I love what water-based media can do for clouds.

Third Place Books is such a good book store and, well, third place. I hadn’t been there in many years, I don’t know how many it’s been that long. Seven? Ten? More? But the Lake Forest Park store, where I did this drawing, is now 25 years old.

Anyway, I feel really good about how this drawing came out! Many dense, repeated forms particularly in ambiguously lit environments like tables in a cafe or restaurant or bookshelves in a bookstore, I find to be difficult subjects. But I also like to keep pushing myself and my abilities, so I opted to take a trawl through the bookstore to try to find a view that inspired me.

And I did find a view that caught my eye! Actually two from the same vantage point, and after doing a quick value sketch of both, I went with this view.

I’m pushing my materials some more, and finding uses for my different pens. I’d refilled a Pentel Pocket Brush with brown ink, and am finding it useful to expand the marks I can make with the waterproof brown ink.

And being patient and drawing in all those books and book covers really paid off in creating that dense feeling of the clerk being bounded by books, like she’s in a cavern of books lit by torchlight. (Don’t light your book cave with torches—too much risk of it all going up in smoke, not recommended.)

Will give you a recap, but first, here’s what’s in today’s blogsletter:

• Last Festival for the Summer This Saturday

• Comic Talk with Bread Lee Recap

• Sketchbook Share

Alright, off we go.

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Last Festival for the Summer This Saturday

A quick reminder that this Saturday I’ll tabling at PhinneyWood Comic Book Show! This will be the last summer festival I’m vending at. Come through if you’ll be in the area! Details below.

PhinneyWood Comic Book Show

FREE Admission!

Where:

Phinney Neighborhood Center – Blue Building

6532 Phinney Ave N

Seattle, WA 98103

When:

Saturday August 9, 2025

11am-4pm

Comic Talk with Bread Lee Recap

The talk went great!

We had an audience that filled the (small) space that Mam’s Books occupies. HUGE thanks to all my friends from different spheres who came out, and Bread’s friends as well. And there were a few other folks who I think just happened to be there or enter the store during our talk and stayed for it. Thank you! It was great meeting and chatting with everyone. As I noted during the talk, infinite percent more than I thought were going to show up.

Bread and I had a great conversation about why we make comics, our inspirations and influences, and each of our latest comics.

Plus I finally learned how to pronounce “Mam’s”: it’s not “ma’am’s”, it’s not “mahm’s”—it’s “mum’s”, as the store’s owner, Sokha, pronounced it.

Some takeaways from our convo:

• The Sunday Funnies had a long tail! Bread is Gen Z while I am an Elder Millenial, and the Sunday comics were influential in both of our interest in comics. Also Calvin and Hobbes, but C&H is eternal. Though, I’d guess that younger Gen Z and later kids probably no longer have the Sunday Funnies as an influence, since people stopped having physical newspaper subscriptions probably when I was in high school or certainly by my college years.

• Bread has a very different approach to making comics than mine, and also makes very different comics than mine. Bread makes short diary comics, some humorous, some serious. His process can be very loose and non-linear, like with his last one, Boy Problems, where he made different segments at different times, and combined them into a somewhat stream-of-consciousness comic.

• I think the jokes in Boy Problems are a great example of one of the things I love about the comics medium: it’s so flexible, you can think of any way want to try to express what your trying to convey to the reader and it’s ok, that for example you can go from a character tossing and turning in bed overthinking a romantic conundrum, to suddenly a panel of Rodin’s The Thinker to make a joke about the mental state of that character, and then back to the character struggling to sleep. This area of comics expression is one that I often think about and forego/miss in my own comics because mine aren’t mainly comedic and such visual gags would be out of place for what I’m trying to do.

You can see Bread’s work here: https://breadlee.com/

Sketchbook Share

Whenever I don’t have a book to read on my bus commutes, maybe I just finished one on the ride or am between library holds, I’ll sketch fellow passengers (or just look out the window).

You know, I think I’m starting to get actually good at this! Celebrate your wins. :)

Here’s what I have for you today:

• 8/3 Comics Convo Event Is Happening!

• Poll: Death Haiku Comics Book Title

• Sketchbook Share

Let’s get to it!

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8/3 Comics Convo Event Is Happening!

It’s happening! We’re confirmed. Here are the details:

Comics Convo

WHEN:

August 3, 2025

1:00pm

WHERE:

Mam’s Books

608 Maynard Ave S
Seattle, WA 98104

Calling all comics enthusiasts!

Come join a Comics Convo @mamsbookstore on 8/3 starting at 1pm with local indie comics authors William Chen and Bread Lee.

Listen in on a casual conversation and have a chance to ask your own comics questions!

Bread and William will ask each other about the following before turning it over to audience Q&A:

📖What draws (you secretly love the pun) them to comics as a medium

📖Their inspirations

📖Their latest comic books

Poll: Death Haiku Comics Book Title

When I came up with my preliminary title for my death haiku comic anthology, “The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics”, I thought it was a funny tongue-in-cheek title that would convey that death doesn’t need to be so heavy a topic. This is in line with my hope that sharing Japanese perspectives on death might help broaden our perspectives.

But how’s it land with you?

While I’ve been doing these death haiku comics, I’ve worried that it may be uncomfortable and off-putting to people, namely since a few people have started unsubscribing since I started this series (it could well be unrelated; there seems to be a platform-wide slowdown happening, as well as a social media-wide slowdown—which I hope means everyone is shifting back to connecting offline instead. I certainly am part of that shift, myself).

On the other hand! A lot of people have expressed excitement and interest in the death haiku comics at the shows I’ve tabled at so far this summer. And while I lost a few subscribers after death haiku posts here on Substack, I gained a few subscribers after death haiku posts on BlueSky. *shrug*

The in-person exchanges are the most impactful on my feeling on this, so I’m inclined to stick with “The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics” (although, my tabletop flyer for the death haiku comics doesn’t have the book title). But I’m curious for your thoughts, so here’s a poll!

If you have a different brilliant idea for a title, feel free to drop it in the comments or message me.

A few festival attendees have told me that they like my vibe, looking across Phased, Blood of My Blood, and the death haiku comics (thank you!). Aaand I feel like “BOOK of DEATH” is more my vibe than “Farewell to Life”. Plus there’s a fart haiku in there. I appear to be talking myself into sticking with the first idea. But if everyone is like “no ‘BOOK of DEATH’ will scare people away”, I’d probably listen.

Sketchbook Share

Last weekend I got to attend a great workshop at Sketcher Fest 2025 in Edmonds, WA. We had perfect weather this year for outdoor sketching: a sunny and warm day that was just the right temperature for an extended time in the sun and little wind to blow your pages around.

Joey Mason, a professional animator in his day job, came to give a workshop on using animation tricks to bend the rules on perspective. I tapped his mind for thoughts on how to break out of my predilection to stick with literal interpretations of the scenes I sketch. And after a little chatting, I came away with this takeaway:

You can draw “caricatures” of buildings and inanimate objects.

Or alternatively:

Let the buildings be characters.

With that in mind, this lamppost felt to me like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, so I gave him a proud pose to expound to passersby.

I’m not sure this belongs in my Blue Period collection, though...

A lot of folks expressed excitement about the death haiku comics, too, so this is very validating for my own excitement when I first thought of the idea and bodes well for the eventual book.

The power went out early on during the festival, and we all improvised lighting to get through. There is a small flashlight that has lived in my backpack for years without ever being used. But Sunday, the moment it had been waiting for its entire life finally arrived—its time to shine.

The visitors seemed unperturbed, though! And if done intentionally with better lighting prepped, it would be awesome as a festival theme.

As a bonus, I also feel like my live sketches I did during the show of attendees standing nearby reached a new level:

Up next for my events, the comics talk at Mam’s Books on 8/3 @ 1pm—probably? I’m trying to coordinate with the store owner, who did verbally confirm that the event is happening a couple weeks ago, but he’s a busy guy. Will keep you posted.

Today’s death haiku comic is the last one for the compilation!

Up next, I’ll be writing and editing the prose for the booklet, doing a back cover illustration and possibly inside cover, depending on how the prose lays out, and I need to learn how to set it all up for print via risograph printing. This’ll be the first time I prep a riso print job, and there are some particulars about it.

I’ll also have a poll coming to get y’all’s thoughts on the title.

Ok, on to Saikaku.

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西角の辞世 Saikaku’s Death Poem

西角 Saikaku (died 1730, age 70)

月影 を

tsukikage wo

借って 今 行く

katte ima iku

十万 里

jyuuman ri

Translation:

I borrow moonlight

and go now, on a journey

of a million miles

Notes

There’s not much new to explain here in terms of the imagery in Saikaku’s poem. But I loved the idea of illustrating “borrowing moonlight” as a literal borrowing of the moon to light one’s way, so this poem was on my priority list early on.

And starry night skies are always so captivating to illustrate and to behold. As I went through the process of illustrating, my ideas evolved so that instead of simply lighting the long path Saikaku walks, the illumination would be a pathway of stars. If you imagine someone carrying the moon as they walk a starry path, it could be an allegory for the moon traveling the night sky. And to think of the moon guiding people to the next world seemed to me a beautiful and satisfying image to end the compilation with.

On the moon:

We can hearken back to Onitsura’s jisei for some of its meanings:

The moon could represent several things: on a simple level, Hoffman notes that the moon was considered an autumnal image by default unless the context indicated otherwise. Seasonal imagery has been a key convention of haikus since the 16th century in Japan.

More significant to death poetry, though, Hoffmann also observes that in a death poem by Oriku, who commit suicide to escape her cruel mother-in-law, the moon represents salvation in the world beyond our mortal realm. And in another interpretation that could be relevant to Onitsura’s poem, the full moon can symbolize enlightenment, with its circular shape echoing the ink circle paintings of enlightenment (ensou) in Japanese Buddhism.

This coming Sunday 7/20 is Seattle Zine Fest, the the Quality Flea Center in Capitol Hill. Find me at table 19!

On to today’s death haiku comic: Kyo’on didn’t take the death poem assignment so seriously as most everyone else did. This will be the second to last one I do before moving to editing the writing and creating a couple more illustrations for the print compilation.

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去音の辞世 Kyo’on’s Death Poem

去音 Kyo’on (died 1749, age 63)

夢 の 葉 か

yume no ha ka

散る 洒落臭し

chiru shyarakusashi

最後 の 屁

saigo no he

Translation:

a dream’s leaves perhaps…

scatter impertinently

like one final fart

Notes

Kyo’on had a little fun with their death poem. Besides using passing gas as a metaphor for the transience of life, they transition from the dream imagery they start the haiku with to gas via shyarakusai (meaning something like impertinent, impudent, or bold), whose latter half, kusai, means “smelly”.

And I had fun coming up with the composition for the comic, starting at the top with gingko leaves blowing beautifully in the wind and traveling down the page we come to the reveal that the wind is a bodily one.

The onomatopoeia I took inspiration from Calvin and Hobbes, whose fart onomatopoeia I and my brothers enjoyed pronouncing literally as young kids. “F-b-p-t-b-p-p-b-t…” I’m sure Watterson would be so proud!

One more summer event announcement to put on your calendar! The others were comics/zine fests, but this one is going to be a comics talk/party. The event will be on Sunday 8/3 at 1pm, at Mam’s Books in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District.

Will be nailing down the plan closer to then, but it’ll likely be a casual conversation with another local Asian-American comics creator about our comics and what drew us to making comics, followed by audience Q&A. It’ll be a fun and interesting talk, and you can ask us about our weird indie comics!

Ok, but before then, it’s just two days till Hot Off the Press this Saturday 7/12. See you there.

Speaking of weird indie comics, I have another death haiku comic for you today, below the fold. This one takes a very different tack from the others—to the extent that it kind of misses the point of the assignment? But says a lot about the author in any case.

This is the sixth in a series I’m doing of haiku comics around the death poems (jisei), farewell notes to life, of early modern Japanese poets. Learn more about this project, Japanese cultural context, and haiku, and find links to the other comics in this series here: death haiku comics.

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木道の辞世 Mokudou’s Death Poem

木道 Mokudou (died 1723, age 58)

気 に かかる

ki ni kakaru

一番 槍 の

ichiban yari no

茄子 かな

nasubi kana

Translation:

I’m always longing

for the chance to be the first

to spear the eggplant

Notes

On eggplants:

Hoffmann notes that eggplants are a seasonal image for summer, the season in which Mokudou died.1 But beyond indicating the season (which is an important part of proper haiku form), it seems that there isn’t anything connecting the eggplant with some other greater symbolism related to death, or anything for that matter.

In his book, Hoffmann also shares Mokudou’s preface to his jisei, in which he explains:

“In times of war the samurai were the first to stab their [spears]2 into their enemies. We are familiar with many stories about these bold warriors. Today peace reigns in the world and warriors no longer go forth into battle. They continue, however, with military exercises, so that in time of need they will be ready to fight zelously, till word of their courage echoes throughout Japan and the entire world.”

Based on Mokudou’s own preface, it really appears to be the case that the image of stabbing the eggplant is Mokudou’s attempt to shoehorn his samurai fighting spirit into the haiku format.3

And yet, there is something poignant about this samurai, whose life has been dedicated to perfecting his prowess as a warrior, coming to the end of his life feeling like he never got his shot.

It’s summer festival season in Seattle, which means there are festivals of all sorts happening every week, from neighborhood block parties to art fests, music fests, film fests, food fests, and yes, comics fests!

I mentioned a couple I’ll be showing at in July, but wanted to add a third one, in August. So plenty of options if some of the dates and locations don’t work for you. And while I’m at it, I’ve got some promo posters to share for each event.

I’ll have copies of Blood of My Blood and Phased to sell.

Hope to see you at one of the following events—the first one’s this coming Saturday!

7/12: Hot Off the Press Book Fair

When:

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Where:

Fantagraphics Bookstore

1201 S. Vale Street

Seattle, WA 98108

7/20: Seattle Zine Fest

When:

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Where:

Quality Flea Center

420 15th Ave. E.

Seattle, WA 98112

8/9: PhinneyWood Comic Book Show

When:

Saturday, August 9, 2025

Where:

Phinney Center Blue Building

6532 Phinney Ave. N.

Seattle, WA 98103

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This post is the fifth I’ve done in this series, and I think another 3-5 oughtta round out a good set for compilation, depending on what else jumps out to me from the poems in Hoffmann’s book.

Thanks for sticking with me on what struck me as a fascinating and exciting idea for a comics project, and also a totally unique one—for good reason, I guess. ;)

Today’s poet is 北斎葛飾 Hokusai Katsushika—yes, that Hokusai! Creator of the Great Wave that seemingly won’t be returning to the ocean the way Thich Nhat Hanh described we all must,1 as nearly two centuries after Hokusai first made the print, people continue to be taken by its beauty and drama.

This is the fifth in a series I’m doing of haiku comics around the death poems (jisei), farewell notes to life, of early modern Japanese poets. Learn more about this project, Japanese cultural context, and haiku, and find links to the other comics in this series here: death haiku comics.

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北斎の辞世 Hokusai’s Death Poem

北斎 Hokusai (died 1849, age 90)

人魂 で

hitodama de

行く 気散 じゃ

yuku kisan jya

夏 の 原

natsu no hara

Translation:

Now as a spirit

rambling and roving I’ll go

over summer’s fields

Notes

Speaking of negative space (last week), it is very important in Hokusai’s composition for The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. The sea and the sky take up similar amounts of space in the piece, and mirror each other in their shapes. But as is often observed, the sea in the foreground is active, violent, dangerous, while the sky and mountain in the background are sparse, steady, calm.

If it didn’t jump out to you, the third panel is an homage to Hokusai’s Wave, with a similar, but mirrored, composition.

Does Hokusai’s second line have 7 syllables?

You might have read Hokusai’s second line and been confused that it seems to have fewer than 7 syllables. Well, it turns out that Japanese haiku are actually based on what are called “mora”, the smallest linguistic unit of timing, which can be shorter than a syllable. For example, the ん (“n”) sound that comes at the end of some words in Japanese, like at the end of “kisan”, is counted as another beat in Japanese even though it may sound like one “syllable” in speech. Thus, “kisan” would actually count as 3 morae rather than 2 syllables: ki-sa-n.

This is going to get super weedsy wrestling with the ambiguities in Hoffmann’s text, so read on only if you dare!

That gets us to 6 syllables/morae? Here we have another point of my frustration with Hoffmann’s using only romaji. I believe 気散じ (“kisanji” meaning recreation, diversion, relaxation) makes the most sense among potential translations for Hoffmann’s romaji “kisan ja”. It could be that there was a contraction of “ji” and “ya” (a sentence ending copula), getting us to “ja” / “jya”.

Or maybe in Hokusai’s time the phrase was used differently, just as “kisan”, meaning the “ja” at the end is “ja” in its function as a copula. I found one other instance of “ja” in Hoffmann’s compilation, and there, too, it seemed to stand for 2 morae. Though in that other poem, if Hoffmann’s romaji is accurate (“gatten ja”), then the “ja” could only count for one, since he has a pause in the “gatten” with the double “t”. However, it appears that in most cases “gatten” is actually pronounced “gaten”, just 3 morae and not the 4 morae that “gatten” takes up. There’s only one use case of “gatten” with the “tt” pronunciation, and that’s as part of a larger phrase that isn’t used in the aforementioned poem. Which makes me think Hoffmann’s romaji is in error, and early modern Japanese considered “ja”/ “jya” to be 2 morae.2

Mark your calendars, everybody! Come see me at Hot Off the Press Book Fair on 7/12 and Seattle Zine Fest on 7/20.

I know I know, I mentioned them before, but now I know they’re really happening. I’ll follow up when I know my table details. Get stoked!

Ok, on to the comic.

This is the fourth in a series I’m doing of haiku comics around the death poems (jisei), farewell notes to life, of early modern Japanese poets. Learn more about this project, Japanese cultural context, and haiku, and find links to the other comics in this series here: death haiku comics.

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猿男の辞世 Saruo’s Death Poem

猿男 Saruo (died 1923, age 63)

食いかけた

kuikaketa

団子 に 花 の

dango ni hana no

別れ かな

wakare kana

Translation:

petals fall

on a half-eaten

dumpling

Notes

Saruo does something really cool with his poem: by evoking something half-eaten, he implies the presence of a person by their absence—like using negative space but for verbal description instead of for visuals. Why didn’t they finish eating the dango? Where did they go? In the context of a death poem, with the petals falling on the unfinished snack, this is poignant.

On dango:

Dango are rice dumplings, often grilled and glazed. As Hoffmann notes, one common occasion for eating dango is while enjoying the cherry blossoms (an activity called hanami, or flower viewing) in spring.

On flowers:

Buddhism came to Japan via China in the seventh century, and over the following centuries came to have more and more influence on Japanese culture. This included the view that life is an illusion or dream.1 During the Heian period (794-1185) of Japanese history, flowers became the principle symbol representing the ephemerality of life.2

Flowers also appear in Gozan’s poem, and in my comic of Onitsura’s poem.

Fun times with the translation:

This poem was an interesting one for creative decisions interplaying between the verbal translation and my creative choices for my comic interpretation.

I liked the choices Hoffmann made in his translation for several reasons, although I still ended up changing it a little, which I’ll get into.

Although with the other poems I’ve done so far, I felt that Hoffmann’s translation changed things more substantially, with Saruo’s, Hoffmann had a very simple translation. He cut out Saruo’s very poetic turn of phrase, “hana no wakare” (flower’s farewell), and kept it simply that the flowers were falling. I considered bringing back Saruo’s beautiful approach, but to me, the very direct depiction works well with the absence of the person who half-ate the dango.

I also considered changing the ordering back to be like Saruo’s original, where he begins with the dango before mentioning the falling petals. But for the sake of the comic that I was envisioning, the visual flow from top to bottom—looking up at the cherry trees, seeing the petals falling, following them down, and finally landing on the half-eaten dango—meant that Hoffmann’s ordering, starting with the flowers worked better for my purposes.

I almost just went with Hoffmann’s translation directly, but for one thing:

Hoffmann’s translation reads “Cherry blossoms fall / on a half-eaten / dumpling”. As discussed previously, I agree with Hoffmann’s approach of not bothering with the exact 5-7-5 cadence of haiku when translating. But here, with “cherry blossoms fall”, we end up with a 5-5-2 structure. An approach that some English haiku writers take is to more generally make the lines short-long-short. This honors to some extent the spirit of Japanese haiku while freeing English speakers from a constraint that wasn’t designed for the rhythms of our language. Hoffmann’s is in effect long-long-short. I decided to channel the short-long-short spirit in making my translation “petals fall / on a half-eaten / dumpling”, for a 3-5-2 structure.3

A quick note that Mam’s Books in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District has picked up a couple copies of Blood of My Blood to sell, too!

Have a look if you’re in the area. Ok, on to the show.

Till next time-

William

This is the third in a series I’m doing of haiku comics around the death poems (jisei), farewell notes to life, of early modern Japanese poets. Learn more about this project, Japanese cultural context, and haiku, and find links to the other comics in this series here: death haiku comics.

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千子の辞世 Chine’s Death Poem

千子 Chine (died 1688, age 28)

燃えやすく

moeyasuku

また 消えやすき

mata kieyasuki

蛍 かな

hotaru kana

Translation:

They light up, and then

they extinguish, just like that

don’t they, fireflies…

Notes

On fireflies:

Fireflies mainly come out in the summer in Japan, so in haiku they generally indicate the summer season, but sometimes they spill over into the fall.1 Chine died in early summer.2

In her poem, Chine is clearly comparing fireflies’ flickering lights, coming into and then going out of existence so lightly, so lacking in occasion, to that of our own lives. Easy come easy go.

Although Hoffmann doesn’t mention other Japanese cultural symbolism for fireflies, I wonder if there isn’t more. The tragic 1988 Japanese animated film Grave of the Fireflies also uses fireflies to symbolize fleeting lives, in this case that of the two children, Seita and Setsuko, during World War II who are the focus of the movie.

My comic for Onitsura’s death haiku comes right after the break, but first:

A Note about Death in Japanese Culture

I thought it would be helpful to say a little about death in Japanese culture to help you understand some context for how these poems don’t come from a place of fear and abhorrence the way we might expect coming from a Western culture. I am by no means an expert, but fortunately Yoel Hoffman offers a lot of history in his book before diving into the death haiku.

Hoffmann notes that:

“Many Japanese prepare for death as soon as they feel their time is near. A will is written to settle the distribution of property and keepsakes among relatives and friends. For the most part, these arrangements take place in an atmosphere of serenity, with almost pleasurable expectation of the voyage to the next world. These preparations do not merely reflect a realistic attitude toward circumstances; they also inspire calmness in the dying allowing them to settle spiritual accounts and to ask pardon for past misdeeds.”1

And although writing death poems as a salutation to life is no longer so widespread as it once was, Hoffmann says that “principally those who have cared for poetry” still do today.

It’s interesting to think about why Japan may have had and still have a much more accepting view of death as a part of life than Western cultures do. Hoffmann observes that Japan’s historical religions, and still primary ones today, first Shintoism and then Buddhism, don’t have a god judging you after death like the Abrahamic religions do.2 Furthermore, in the West death is an individual affair while in Japan death, like life, is a group (usually the family) affair, with the deceased believed to still remain connected to the daily lives of the living. Hoffmann speculates that these customs may make death less scary to Japanese people.

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鬼貫の辞世 Onitsura’s Death Poem

鬼貫 Onitsura (died 1738, age 78)

夢 返せ

yume kaese

烏 の 覚ます

karasu no samasu

霧 の 月

kiri no tsuki

Translation:

Give me my dream back!

A crow snatched me from slumber

To a misty moon

Notes

On life being a dream:

Buddhism came to Japan via China in the seventh century, and over the following centuries came to have more and more influence on Japanese culture. This included the view that life is an illusion or dream.3

On crows:

Hoffmann notes that “the ancient Japanese believed that the dead turned into birds, or perhaps that birds carried the dead to another world. To this day it is thought that ravens embody the souls of the dead [...]”4

On the moon:

The moon could represent several things: on a simple level, Hoffman notes that the moon was considered an autumnal image by default unless the context indicated otherwise.5Seasonal imagery has been a key convention of haikus since the 16^th century in Japan.6

More significant to death poetry, though, Hoffmann also observes that in a death poem by Oriku, who commit suicide to escape her cruel mother-in-law, the moon represents salvation in the world beyond our mortal realm.7 And in another interpretation that could be relevant to Onitsura’s poem, the full moon can symbolize enlightenment, with its circular shape echoing the ink circle paintings of enlightenment (ensou) in Japanese Buddhism.8

On the rabbit in the moon:

This isn’t in Onitsura’s haiku at all, but I put a rabbit on the moon because in Japanese folklore it’s a rabbit on the moon and not a “man in the moon”.

On flowers:

Onitsura’s poem doesn’t mention flowers, but I wanted to use another visual device to illustrate his use of the dream metaphor for life. It occurred to me to hark back to the flowers in Gozan’s poem last week, which evoked the ephemerality of life. These also were handy in that they could help me make the crow’s rude awakening more impactful.

A hat tip to Keezy Young, local Seattle graphic novelist, whose Eisner nominated short comic, Sunflowers (it’s good!), inspired in me the idea to use flowers to symbolize being under an illusion. In her comic, Young uses sunflowers covering her eyes to indicate being in a state of hypomania.