October Recap – A series of unfortunate events, OC-Tober, Inky Fingers

Recap

Hello everyone! Spooky month is over and boy was it eventful, both good and bad. It all started when the ceiling in my home office started caving in after heavy rains. I’m gonna spare you the details but I had to move everything into the dining room, in which I’ve been working ever since. Since then, I’ve had just the worst luck with everything, from losing my phone (and finding it again), to breaking rolls of film in my camera, getting two flat tires in one week, breaking my CPAP mask, getting suspended from Etsy and other irritating mishaps. But at the same time, I had just the best time with my friends, who treated me to the Gorillaz show and a weekend in the woods. I long for a “normal” week…

And with all of that, who’d be dumb enough to do an art challenge like OCTober/Inktober, right? Me, that’s who! Hahahaha! Even though I’m in the middle of a big freelance contract, nothing is more compelling than to draw 31 portraits of imaginary people for my own self-indulgence. And growth as an artist, of course. You can see them all on Patreon or Instagram. Here are my favorite ones!

The Hiver Nucléaire omnibus (French) is out in stores! The launch event went great. Thanks to everyone who showed up!

Announcements

The artbook is here! It’s called Inky Fingers and it looks really good, you guys! 40 pages of crispy black and white art, exclusive drawings and maybe the best Naruto fanart that’s ever been made? That’s just my opinion. It’s already up for sale! I would really like it if you’d check it out because…uh, I’m gonna be real for a minute: I love making and selling prints but last week, Etsy closed my account for an indefinite amount of time. So now, mere weeks before the holiday season starts, I can only rely on my own little store, which has no marketplace to drive traffic to. So if you’re looking for a place to buy prints, stickers, holiday cards or this new artbook for yourself or someone you care about, this is the place to go. Expect new raccoon cards and big sales starting next month. Thank you!!

This is for the local crowd: I’ll be signing books at the Salon du Livre de Rimouski and the Salon du Livre de Montréal. Check out the French version of this post for the list of hours or better yer, subscribe to my newsletter!

That’s all for this month (thank god). I have fewer recommendations that usual because of *points at everything*.

Reading:

• “Welcome to Hell, Elon.” The Verge has a few heads up for the millionaire man-child who bought Twitter and will likely ruin the very few last good bits of this cursed platform. Which I still very much enjoy, thanks to a decade of curating an artist-oriented timeline. “You break it, you buy it.”

On the small screen:

• I finished Never have I ever and really, really enjoyed it. Three seasons was just the right length for this wonderfully witty and touching teenage rom-com series.
• Not for the faint of heart, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was uh… a lot. It’s visually stunning at moments, followed by long shots of no animation whatsoever and overall, a bit much for me. Maybe I’m getting soft, but man, was it ever bleak. Studio Trigger be Triggerin’!
• And on the opposite animation spectrum, I’m liking the new Bee and Puppycat installment a lot. The pacing is super weird, there are tons of sequences of things turning into other things, everything has a cute face, and Puppycat is ugh, the best. I wish the characters were less oblivious to everything but I suppose the lightness of the show draws from this aspect a lot. I’ve been trying to track down the soundtrack like crazy!

In my ears:

• Toronto-based Alvvays has released their third album called Blue Rev. Power dream-pop cranked on 11, with layers upon layers of sound. Shoegaze at time, but with a spine. Pressed is a Smiths-reminiscent, jangly two minutes of pure bliss. Fantastic.
• King Gizzard released 3 albums in October, because why the fuck not. Changes is my favorite one so far, and it’s on its way to becoming one of my favorite album from them (out of the freaking 23 they already have).