November Recap – Work boots everywhere, holiday sale and TOASTS

Hello world, I hope you’re all doing good. Each time I do one of these recaps, I start out by looking at my calendar to see what I’ve done during the month. I think November barely had any days without appointments, events or guys in work boots walking around my apartment. It’s been busy. But there is light at the end of the tunnel! My ceiling is fixed and by the time I post this, I’ll hopefully have moved back into my office, after almost two months of working from my dining room. I’ll miss eating in front of the computer even though it’s a terrible habit.

Between the ongoing freelance work and book fairs, I’ve been hard at work on my online shop. My Etsy account is still suspended and since this is normally the most lucrative period of the year, I went out of my way to make my shop as nice as possible. It’s the kind of task that I always dread, but as soon as I start making banner ads and other promotional material, I get 100% in the ZONE. There’s a part of my brain that really likes “playing shop”! And this year, not only did I open my own store, but it’s stocked with items that I’m really proud of. It’s a good feeling!

This page is probably incomprehensible in English but it’s the illustration of a local expression “Y aller aux toasts”, meaning “to go all in/fast”. You can see what the other 24 cartoonists came up here.

Book fair season is officially over! Thank you Rimouski, thank you Montreal, you’ve been great. I’ve seen enough carpeted convention centers and stacks of books for a while! Thanks to everyone who came out to get their books signed and have a chat. It’s always such a treat.

Announcements

As mentioned above, there’s a huge sale going on in my shop right now.I only do one a year, during the holidays so now is the time to get some sweet printed goodies. This year, there are new raccoon holiday cards, three new prints and the artbook I’ve been talking about non-fucking-stop for the past two months. Just go wild, I say! The little space I have left has been transformed into a warehouse/post-office and I am LIVING. I did mention I loved playing shop, didn’t I? 

And for the local crowd, my holiday cards are on sale at Planète BD and la Librairie le Renard Perché. As soon as I find a minute to travel all the way to the nether regions of St-Henri, I’ll drop some at Crossover Comics on Notre-Dame. Okay, it’s also an excuse to go eat at the Greenspot!

And whatever I have left in stock by this time will be on my itsy-bitsy tiny table at the Atomic Café Kermesse on December 11th. I might have a few copies of Utown and Hiver Nucléaire to sign, depending on the space available. See you there!

Until then my friends, I hope you have a great holiday season with your loved ones, whoever they are or in whatever form they might come. Stay safe, stay good and stay toasty! I’ll be back in December with a best-of-the year list, maybe? Take care <3

Cool Stuff

Reading:

• I finished Jade War this week, and I’ve been having LOTS of dreams about it.
• My favorite newsletter of the moment is Garbage Day. It’s a casual but clever newsletter about what’s happening on the Internet (hint: it’s weird). It’s pretty tongue-in-cheek and I’m always happy when it lands in my inbox.

On the small screen:

• The Crown is back! Everyone’s miserable and Diana’s gloomy side-stares should get their own name in the credits. MORE.
• So after being chased out of my home office by water and gravity, I was the target audience for this video: How space can improve (or destroy) your life. It’s full of nice little insights and research results on why we should very much care about the spaces we inhabit and spend 90% of our time in. Full-time, at home freelancers, I’m looking at YOU.

Playing: 

Children of Morta, a Diablo-rogue-like with gorgeous art. The kind of game where I can switch my brain off and kill hordes of pixelated monsters without a single care in the world.

Cool artist:

• Peter D. Harris paints very slick, very realistic scenes that feel both familiar and slightly off-putting. I love his series of liminal spaces with no one in them. Shoutout to the Montreal metro making various appearances!

Cool account:

Office: “A Love letter to the Golden Age of Corporate Kitsch”. I’m old enough to remember the mood of these pictures but not nearly enough to have worked there. There are weird shots of nerds in basements that I don’t really get, but this collection of optimistic, corporate lifestyle pictures is wonderful.