On the evolution of vertebrates

I recently finished (more or less) a collection of the drawings and strips from my sketchbooks that I've been posting on this blog over the last six or seven years. Below are a few pages I drew while figuring out what I wanted to put on the book's spine (I spent way too much time last week designing some bookmarks using some of the spine outtakes). Below these is the spread where I worked out a statistical analysis of the book's index. Yeah, it has an index. A bit more about the book here. It's due out in late Spring.

Charlie Hebdo

If you don't support freedom of speech for people with whom you disagree profoundly, you don't support freedom of speech. Whether you like what they had to say or not, institutions like Charlie Hebdo are the reason freedom of expression is so important. I can't quite say "I am Charlie Hebdo." But god dammit they had every right to say what they had to say without threat of violence and murder.

Conversation Gardening 012-014

Holly's next record

Early last year I did a record cover for my friend Holly's first record. Somehow I never got around to blogging it, but she's crowdfunding the money for her second record now, ending today (January 5th), in fact, so maybe now is as good a time as any. Aside from Holly being one of my favorite people on the planet, I have an interest in the fundraising, because I'm slated to do the cover of the second go round as well. Here's an image of the first record, a gatefold with foil stamping:

And the inside:

Part of the connection is that one of the songs on this first record, written before I ever met Holly, was inspired by a piece in my book The End.

The cover of the second record will be a continuation of the visual ideas as the first, so they'll be something of a set. Also it's a double LP.

Holly's already been in the studio a bunch. The new record is being recorded at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco, produced by John Vanderslice. Alan Sparhawk (of Low) is playing on it, as are a few other great people you can read about here. Some of my sketches and preparatory drawings for the design are also on offer as rewards in the campaign. So go help a girl out.

If you want a copy of the first record you might be able to get one from her, but I also just put a few copies up at my store site, here.

On Optimism

I did a strip for Medium apropos of the New Year. You can read it here.

MOI benefit print

I did a print for the crowdfunding campaign to start an 826 chapter in St Paul – the Mid-continent Oceanographic Institute (MOI). It's a reprise of the cover I did for their first publication of student writing earlier this year. It's an edition of 75, the first fifty of which went to donors to the campaign. printed in archival pigment on nice thick, fancy paper. Just put it up at the store, here.

Rain Taxi Benefit Auction

I donated a few pieces to Rain Taxi for their fundraiser and auction this year, including this original from God and the Devil at War in the Garden (it's inverted in the book). Most of the silhouette art from this story and from Rage of Poseidon doesn't really have coherent original art, so this is something of a rarity. Below that is a cover image I did a few years ago for Norton's American Hybrid poetry anthology (when RT's Eric Lorberer was at my house looking at originals he told me that that book became well known and, to some, deeply disliked among poetry fans following publication). Head to Rain Taxi's ebay page to see a panel from Big Questions and some drawings of movie stars from the 1920's that I did as sketches for Daisy and Tom Buchanan for a cover of the Great Gatsby in 2011.