into the starry void

welcome to me! and the mad dash to the zine table

Oct 19, 2023

Thank you for joining me on this inaugural shout into the starry void

I hope you’ll stick with me as I offer small monthly updates on what’s cooking in the studio, announce upcoming events and publications, and share some of what’s been rattling the ole brain box along the way.

zines! zines! zines!

It’s that time of year again…

Summer has burned itself down to an autumnal crackle, fall has fallen with a thwack, and the zinesters are all hunkered in their bunkers prepping for the annual collision of art, artist, and audience that is The Festival Season.

A trio of recent pictures including a smiley face shadow at the wheel of a dumpster, Lara crouched on the floor over an art project, and Creeper the cat gazing wistfully out the window in front of a messy studio view — As per usual, I’ve been caught in a flurry of last minute layouts, photoshop nightmares, and printing miracles.

I hope you can catch me at Portland Zine Symposium Saturday October 28th and at Short Run Comix and Arts Festival Saturday November 4th (but I am slippery and getting faster all the time).

Short Run tabling map with Table N80 circled, come visit me! — Despite a full decade of experience (minus The Major Plague Years), there’s still that invigorating zest of panic in the air.

Both events are free and bustling with amazing artists and indie publishers plus—what with The Festive Season following The Festival Season—brimming with unique gifts for all the beautiful weirdos in your life.

whatcha got cookin’?

Do you long to dabble in the dark arts? Do you wish to push a bushy-tailed youngster down the slippery slope of zine making? Then the ZINESTER Starter Pack is for you! Grab this goodie-packed treat bag for yourself, your favorite niece, a friend’s monstrous child, or that cool neighborhood tween (recommended for ages 8+).

Each pack includes a guided, draw-your-own time travel zine, mini-zine folding instructions, a zine info and resource pamphlet, a zine of writing prompts and drawing games, and a Mighty Pebble Press official Zine Club sticker.

I’ve been drawing away on a 20-page psychedelic poetry comic detailing an encounter with The Red Dog Child. I would love to get it riso printed in time for the fests (hit me up dear printers!) but its first birth may be inkjet or mid November—either way, keep an eye peeled and an ear perked.

red gouache and sketchy ink in three scary, genderless toddler figures with freaky little teeth and wild hair

Early sketchbook explores from The Red Dog Child

If zines aren’t your scene, perhaps I can interest you in some fresh stickers?

**The glittery baby is the first in a planned Microbial Rodeo sticker collection—yeehaw! The others are Anxious Apple and the now** **very** **limited Star Face.**

reading + watching + listening

Abstracted mix of paint and digital careen across the cover of James Bridle's Ways of Being--Animals, Plants, Machines: the search for planetary intelligence — For fans of *An Immense World,* *12 Bytes*, *Entangled Life,* or *How to Be Animal.*

“What matters is what lies between us rather than within us…intelligence is something physical and relational”

This book is mind-blowing. Bridle is a deeply thoughtful and voraciously curious guide, leading you to question every anthropocentric and anthropomorphic impulse you never knew you had. Prepare to be enchanted into deeper empathy and fascination with the “more than human world”. Heavy, hopeful, expansive, astonishing.

“Since the enlightenment…and the scientific revolutions that followed it, our understanding of the world has been shaped by a misplaced objectivity: the belief that the world has a single, coherent narrative and that there exists a one-size fits all framework for interpreting it.”

I devoured the first half of the book in two long days of listening (read by the author in their very soothing British voice) while doodling down on zines this week—HIGHLY recommend (thanks for turning me onto this one, Will)!

For lighter entertainment and shameless escapism…

Han Ji Min and Lee Min Ki strike wacky poses on this Behind your Touch promo image

Travis and I just finished the K-Drama, Behind Your Touch. It is so delightfully deranged and surprising that I recommend leaping in without any background knowledge—surrender to the sweet madness!

phew! you made it!

Thank you so much for choosing to spend a little time with me this evening

Happy soon-to-be Halloween!

10-year old Lara in sunglasses and baggy blue and white-striped tights holds up a leg with an oversize clown shoe at the end. — Fifth grade “French toilet elf” Halloween costume featuring my dad’s stolen slap shoes

Mighty Pebble Press