Find Me at Short Run Comix Fest November 1st and More News

The BOOK of DEATH Haiku Comics is ready!

How’s your fall going? We’ve had a pretty dry one relative to Seattle’s climate, but it’s been rainy this past week, and on my walks I marvel at how vibrant the colors in plant foliage and petals look when they’re wet.

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!

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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!