And now we’re back to full story pages; a piece from the past. Woo, even a few weeks off and I feel rusty! Soon enough we’ll get back into the present day (well, present day circa September, 1768…) and see what Luther’s up to.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it this past weekend, Erika Moen and I, under the supervision of Bill Mudron and Katie Lane, recorded two solid hours of talk about comics, working as a freelancer, and several other topics beside! I’m editing the podcast version, but you can also view the video Ustream version right here on Erika’s channel. Plenty of questions answered about Family Man!
If you check in here but once a week, please also make sure to keep an eye on this journal or my Twitter feed as I sell off original watercolors (every day possible this month!) to raise money for Heifer International.
And lastly, on the afternoon of the 5th I’ll be at the Legends of Webcomics open house here in Portland with Meredith Gran, Aaron Diaz, that jerk Erika again, and Luke Mahan, selling all sorts of fun and exciting things and, surely, being delightful. Details here!
Today’s Heifer International fundraising watercolor is a literary hare!
Writing her memoirs, no doubt! An entire chapter is dedicated to yesterday’s fox and what a doofus he is. Also what sell-outs bunnies are.
This one sold instantly (wow dang), but there will be more on the way this week! If you have a request for a particularly fun animal you’d like to see me do, post it in comments and I’ll throw it into the hat.
And, just to start keeping records, Animals For Animals has now raised $80. That’s enough for four rabbits or half of a llama!
People have started asking if I’ll produce prints of the animals for sale. The answer is yes, but I want to encourage sales of originals before I start selling reproductions (although I would like for proceeds from print sales to go to Heifer as well).
Stay tuned!
Every year I try to make a Christmas donation to my favorite charity – Heifer International, a wonderful organization that purchases animals (from bees to buffalo)as well as veterinary care and training for impoverished families the world over. (Read more on their site.)
This year it’s a bit harder for me to donate than usual, since I’ve made the transition to being a self-supporting artist. Many of the friends with whom I used to go in on an animal purchase are in the same financial situation.
It seemed to me that this was an opportunity – for me to make things, for you to purchase something lasting, and for a family in the larger world to benefit from it! For the month of December, I will be creating and then selling watercolor paintings of animals (as often as I can manage!). When I finish, I’ll count up what’s been raised and then buy the most animal possible!
My offering today: an enemy of many of the animals Heifer sponsors, a fox! Little does he realize that his dastardly deeds will ultimately be doing good.
This craft fellow is on sale at Etsy for $40. It is a lovely little painting, and I will guarantee arrival by mail to any part of the world in time for Christmas, and that it will be packaged fancy-like.
Change your links, everybody! Family Man now lives on one single website, and that’s http://www.lutherlevy.com. It’ll update there every week, and all the notes and extra features you have come to love (or merely tolerate) live there with it, along with many new bells and whistles and an all-over shinyness.
And a new chapter is off and running, with yet more exciting bunny imagery. Sorry, bunnies of the world; it’s nothing personal.
Happy Thanksgiving to all those of you in the U.S. of A! Now go play.
Finishing the website and putting together a book pitch have delayed me for another week. But that’s okay, because it gives me the opportunity to make some long overdue fan-art for the best ever webcomic set in Ancient Rome: SPQR Blues by Klio!
Yessir, that’s Vesuvius in the background. The volcano is to SPQR Blues what werewolves are to Family Man: you never know when it’s going to kick in.
SPQR Blues, beyond being a great ensemble soap opera, is also one of those rare works of historical fiction that make the time and place it depicts feel both cozily familiar…and completely foreign.
Klio’s delicate and conservative linework can be consumed in large doses with no dangerous side effects, and the obstacles and heartbreaks of daily life in a complicated society make for very tasty reading as well.
There’s an immense archive available for your reading pleasure, so shoo! Go read!
