Musings, work in progress and recent favorites
Early spring joy: Magnolias blooming
Recently, in an effort to curb social media doomscrolling, I’ve been trying to indulge more in blogs, newsletters (the new blogs), basically long form things. While I was catching up on The Story of my Cat Popeye column (you can google translate the page easily, that’s what I do) (will I ever truly commit to learning Kanji ?)
I thought « would I like to write something like this ? » « would I like to write…a blog ? »
I’ve been wondering about doing a newsletter for a while; like everyone, I’ve been looking for ways to escape the clutches of social media as my only online presence. Substack IS the hot new thing… yet I don’t think it’s for me. Not in the sense of « I’m too tired and I don’t wanna do a new thing », in the sense of « do I really wanna commit time and energy to yet another platform that’s gonna siphon everything for evil deeds », been there, done that (insert old twitter handle there, current insta one here, you know how it is, we’re all trapped in it). So here I am dusting off the good ol’ website.
I don’t want to give up on the internet as a creative platform. Maybe I’m an optimist, but seeing people go back to a less centralized way of using it has made me happy, and going back to reading reading long form content has truly felt like giving my brain a break. I love reading and I wanna partake !Â
For me, the joy of blogs, YouTube channels, socials, or the internet overall has always been this; how do people live ? what do they like ? what do they create ? show me other things ! I wanna hear about everything ! especially the mundane ! It's fun, it's interesting, and it satisfies my seemingly bottomless curiosity about the human experience. I'm grateful that I get to see all of this.
In a very practical exemple of this: I love what’s in my bag videos. What IS in that bag ? I wanna know ! That handkerchief looks nice. Is that hand cream good ? Do you really carry a full bottle of perfume at all times ? I gobble these up with enthusiasm and naiveté. Some (most?) of them might be ads. I don’t care, I chose to believe.
Anyway, here’s a blog post.
After 8 months(ish) of writing and storyboarding my next book, I’m finally working on the actual pages. There’s a kind of dread when looking at my page planner (why are there so many, am I insane ?) but also an excitement (all these things I’ve been looking forward to drawing !!). Years ago, I saw an interview of Québecois cartoonist Michel Rabagliati where he talked about tackling each book as a daily routine; not thinking about the 200+ pages to come, and instead focusing about the 2 that need to be done that day. Little by little, the comic will get done, I just need to be careful and try not to look too far ahead to avoid vertigo.
I’m excited about this (these) book(s) (it’s gonna be a series of two books). I’ve never worked on anything this long or structured quite like it. I hope readers will like it too.
Things I’ve seen, read, heardÂ
Mieko Kawakami’s Sisters in Yellow
Mieko Kawakami writes female characters like no other. She doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable, the selfishness, the loneliness. I love her novels and her writing, she can be warm or devastating, all in the same paragraph. I’m reading « Sisters in yellow » right now and enjoying every bit of it.
Morning Musume - First Time
After years of being unavailable on streaming platforms, the near complete Hello!Project discography dropped all at once, and as a former JPOP obsessed teenager, you bet I was immediately hard at work cooking up playlists for every occasion.
Morning Musume's first full length album, « First Time » (1998) has been a forever favorite, the mp3 folder finding a space in nearly every one of my phones, and now it’s available for everyone to discover. The mellow voices of the original members, and the soft pop excellence of the album's 10 tracks is such an interesting time capsule. The group moved on from this sound quickly (and to great success) but I can’t help but love this version of them.Â
As someone who spends most of her work days sitting at a desk, I’m always looking for good stuff to listen to. Drawing comics is fun but it’s also very LONG and sometimes a tad repetitive (especially…coloring…my beef with coloring is eternal) so I’m a big consumer of long form YouTube videos and podcasts. There’s a sweet spot though, stuff can’t be TOO interesting or engaging, because I still need some of my brain for the cartooning. Finding stuff that hits that sweet « interesting and fun but not to engaging but also not boring but I can miss a full 5 minutes of it and not get lost » is an art.Â
I recently found myself listening to a bunch of episodes of Girl Historians, and it’s been hitting that spot. It’s fun, informative but full of tangents that let me focus on my job for a hot minute. It’s a great work pod, and a fun time. Here’s a few episodes I liked.
