January Recap – Face stuff, the freelance cycle, pockets.
Category : Les CabtualitƩsDate : January 30, 2023
Recap
Hello everyone! As some of you know already Iām getting jaw surgery in less than two weeks and preparing for this has taken up a lot of my time. Between going to various appointments and setting up a donation fund for the procedureās uncovered costs, I felt the month go by in the blink of an eye. The surgery is scary of course, but Iāve been waiting for this for a really long time. Itās gonna be a weird month.
Thankfully, some of the freelance work that carried over from last year is done. After my current batch of work is done, I plan on starting a new comic project. Itās still in a very early development stage but I find myself thinking about it more and more often. Itās a good sign!
I barely had time to draw this month but I did this fun little meme for my own enjoyment. Sam is a known lighter kleptomaniac but heāll never admit it.
Announcements:
The English-language version of Utown is done and sent to print. Crazy, right? It already started popping up online and even has its own Goodreads page. I try not to think about the reviews too much for now. Hereās the very flattering picture thatāll be next to my bio at the end of the book. Needless to say, Iām pretty pleased with myself.
So thatās it for now! I donāt know which state Iāll be in by the end of February but Iāll try to stay active. A huge thanks to people who have donated or bought prints; you are the best. Also, if you rather get this post in French, it exists on Substack. Subscribe to the newsletter while you’re there!
Cool stuff
On the small screen
- The Makanai – Cooking for the Meiko House. A cute, feel-good show about two teenage girls and their daily life in a meiko (apprentice geishas) house in Kyoto. It features a lot of close-ups of carefully-prepared food, basked in sunlight. I wonāt be able to watch this while on a soft diet for eight weeks so might as well do it now!
- I finally caved in and watched Chainsaw Man, despite my aversion for all matters of body horror. Itās gross and kinda dumb, but it has a lot of heart. And that ART!!
- Even though I liked the first Knives Out more, Glass Onion was also extremely good. A shout-out to the set design team for nailing that out-of-touch, tech billionaire bad taste aesthetics. I loved hating the house.
In my ears
Good thrift store haul this month! Iām slowly filling gaps in my ācollectionā and getting albums of bands I was too young to really get into, like Lushās Lovelife and The Breederās Last Splash. Kim Deal is pretty cool (The Dandy Warhols think so too). I also found a brand new, still shrink-wrapped copy of Arcade Fireās Everything Now and Iām ashamed to say my moral compass goes out the window when faced with $2.95 CDs in a Renaissance bin.
Go listen to Love is Yours by Flasher. Itās a great alt-rock album from start to finish, nothing outrageous, just good songs.
Reading
Iāve done it! I finished the entire Green Bone Saga, you know, the books Iāve been babbling about for the last months? Itās been decades since I mourned at the end of a book series. The last brick– I mean book– felt a bit rushed but Iām willing to forgive pretty much anything in front of such a writing feat. Since my friend Jessy lends me her books, I give them back with a hand-written review. Iām curating my human algorithm!
<curation>
Speaking of which, I learned of the term āenshitifficationā or why and how certain online platforms/websites go from being pleasant to downright nearly-unusable. Artists online who sell books or merch, are amongst the first to feel its effect. Most of the platforms I use are close to being terminally enshittified, thus prompting me to keep moving my art and my writing at an increasingly faster pace. Fascinating read: Tiktokās enshittification via Pluralistic.
Cool artist
I went to see Jean-Michel Basquiatās exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts and Iām still thinking about it. The amount of bits and pieces he left behind, from humongous artwork to polaroids and notebooks, is what struck me the most. This and the $85 shirts they sold in the shop at the endā¦ Itās on until February 19th so you still have a chance if youāre in town!