Portfolio of comic artist Cab

The AC is installed, I’ve been working from home wearing as little clothes as possible, and drinking lemonade. I hope you guys are keeping it cool, wherever you are!

This month started out strong with the Montreal Comiccon on July 5th. Me and a couple of pals got invited at the very last minute, to share two big tables at the faaaaaaar end of the show floor. It was a perfect setup, honestly; having a set schedule to sell books but also merch is the best of both world. For the first time in years, I actually walked around Artist Alley and met tons of super nice people. Ahhh, I missed tabling! And the AC inside the Palais des Congrès was a blessing.

The scorching heat inspired this weird series of prints. I’ve been told they look both delicious and absolutely disgusting! It’s different than what I usually do but it was a good break from drawing comic panels. Anyway, I put them up on my shop!

Another new item I’ve been wanting to do was a Mystery Pack! I have a LOT of prints and merch at this point, so why not make a surprise bundle? I have no idea if it’ll even catch on but when it comes to Etsy in general, I have no idea what I’m doing. Oh well!

One of the highlight of the month was the release of my Invader Zim alternate cover. I finished it somewhere last fall and I had to patiently wait almost a year to show it. I didn’t think I’d see an Invader Zim renaissance in my lifetime but between drawing two alternate covers (there’s another one on the way) and the Netflix movie coming in a week or so, past me is kinda freakin’ out! I have a feeling that a lot of you are also old-time fans of this weird, weird series. Maybe I’ll watch a few of the old episodes for nostalgia’s sake!

Okay, now onto the good news part.

I GOT MY GRANT!

I still can’t believe it! I will be able to make Utown my main project! As July was dragging on, I really started losing hope. Applying for a Canadian Art Council grant was almost an after thought earlier this year. I’m SO happy I did though! It’s wild how my mindset switched to thinking 100% of the time of ways to scrape some income left and right (everything I wrote in this entry is, in fact, that) to thinking about one. single.thing. How am I going to make the best comic I can. There was a background noise in my head, a static sound that always asked “How will you make it until the next freelance gig? You should get a real job!”. The guilt of working countless unpaid hours on a script, a storyboard and maintaining a Patreon, has toned down.

So for now I’m savouring the moment. I got the email at the end of the month, so I’m allowing myself a bit of a breathing space before I start planning the whole thing. I’m both extremely excited and terrified; it’s a good feeling! It’s worth pointing out that I had a lot of help from dear friends along the process. From reviewing storyboards to commenting my script and giving some much needed feedback on the grant application itself, I don’t think I would’ve made it alone. I’m so grateful!

For more Utown updates, head on Patreon. I still have tons of sketches and concepts to post. Hopefully, by the next monthly recap, I’ll have a finished chapter!

Until then, here’s what got me hoppin’ this month.

Reading: This great article on being a thrifty artist. It resonated with me quite a lot!
Watching: A mix of Queer Eye, 3Below and….Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures. I’m all over the place!
Listening: Cool, summery jams. Friendly Fires, Metronomy, Beach House. And… um. I fell back into Mars Volta, which is the absolute opposite of “chill”.
Artist: Jiji Knight. It’s cute and soft and just weird enough. She’s very active on Twitter too!

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