Lena Draws Comics

Pennsylvania-born, California-raised, Vermont-educated queer cartoonist.

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Lena H. Chandhok is a Pennsylvania-born, California-raised, Vermont-educated queer cartoonist. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her partner Paul, where they make art, study Yiddish, and slowly fill their apartment with books.

Lena’s work has a very honest and sentimental touch to it. Her stories are as beautiful as they are touching. You can find more of it at lenadrawscomics​!

Lena’s story for Dates is about a jewish immigrant who remakes himself on his journey to a new home. You can get this story and many others by backing Dates on Kickstarter.

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Just a quick reminder: there are less than 2 days to go on the Dates Kickstarter! Zora and Cat have put together an incredible anthology of queer historical fiction comics that span a variety of times, places, and experiences. The book is gonna be gorgeous, so please go get yourself a copy! You’ll be supporting a long list of excellent creators.

[lenadrawscomics]

In honor of National Coming Out Day, here is the story of my coming out! I drew this story for Northwest Press’s fantastic anthology, Anything That Loves: Comics Between Gay and Straight. It’s filled with great stories about nonbinary sexuality by equally great creators. I highly recommend picking up a copy!

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Artist announcements day two!

Introducing:

Millionfish, Lena H, Chandhok, Bis Thornton and E.S. Mahony, Joamette Gil, Grace Park, Ann Uland and Emily Willis, Robyn Haley, and Megan Hillyer!

Still more artists to come!

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 4]

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Are you guys psyched as hell about Dates? ‘Cause I’m psyched as hell about Dates!

(Also, what’s up, Internet? It’s been a while!)

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Sometimes I get drunk and draw Sailor Moon characters on bar napkins.

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Sometimes I draw our friends during their shows. This turned out to be a decent likeness of Mike O'Malley, but it's definitely the best I've ever drawn his damn bouzouki! There's something about that shape that I just cannot, I don't even know. I like how the colors turned out, though. Tombow markers are my favorite traveling companions--these days, I always have five or six of 'em in my purse.

Mike is a pretty great musician as well as a life model, so you should definitely check out his music. He's playing at the Sidewalk Café in the East Village tonight at 11 pm, so come join us if you feel so inclined!

[lenadrawscomics]

Finally got around to scanning my work from Hourly Comic Day! It was a fun challenge to try to incorporate color this year, especially on top of the challenge of drawing on the train. Some of the hospital-related stuff I drew might make more sense with a little bit of context. My partner's mother was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer, so we went to visit her after her initial surgery last month. While I think my hourlies turned out pretty well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that next year I'll have some more hopeful news to draw.

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The weather's getting cold again. Time to put on all your layers and drink a lot of tea.

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I treated myself to a bang trim and some new Photoshop brushes today! Both of these things will be showing up in future drawings.

(The brushes I used are from Kyle Webster's fantastic "Ultimate MegaPack" and "Real Watercolor" brush packs.)

[mollyostertag-deactivated202310]

very very silly Photoshop pun valentines

[careydraws]

Molly started something amazing with her Photoshop pun valentines! The world needs more of them so you should add ‘em on below.

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Photoshop and puns--my two true loves! ♥ 

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Two more hourlies! Making comics while traveling is tough. I'll be excited to ink these once we arrive and scan 'em when we get back.

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Happy Hourly Comics Day! I'm startin' to sketch out my first few hours.