Man, making a book is a lot of hard work. I'm accomplishing things at a decent rate, but my real worry is when I print it and start making copies, and then, you know, the whole handing it out thing. But it's so much fun. Especially because I just finished drawing, inking, and scanning the two-page Intermission comic I came up with to fill some space. If you ever, for some reason, wonder why I love comics so much, God help you, but here's a good reason:

YES. The Intermission comic, as you can see, features an old character Reginald the Distinguished Gentlemen, making his return to talk about outer space with a DEINONYCHUS. Yeah, clearly reading Ricardo Delgado's Age of Reptiles Omnibus left an impression on me. I remembered something while drawing this page, something I had learned as a child, but somehow forgotten: DRAWING DINOSAURS IS FUN.

The other page has a spaceship and weird cosmic stuff in it, and I have this repetitive rhythm thing going on in it too. I read someone saying that part of the fun of drawing comics is you come up with little ideas as you're drawing, things you think are really clever, and you have to laugh. I did a lot of laughing with these two pages.

I also worked up the logo for the book:

And here's the drawing I did for the cover of the thing:
I feel most comfortable drawing Vincent without a shirt on. And Ezra is without pants because I had no idea how to draw a skirt folded to the way she's sitting and hate drawing shorts.

A redneck customer with a teardrop tattoo at the storage buildings saw me working on it and loved it. This is a personal victory.

And finally, here is what David got me for my birthday from a Gundam store in Korea, and from Tokyo:

The Gundam model is what I'm most stoked and terrified about. I haven't made a Gundam model in YEARS, but I am excited. The bag is worth keeping too. Also a sweet postcard, a Squirtle toy, and a wicked Bearbrick Gundam keychain. My best friend knows me all too well.

With that out of the way, it's back into the mines I go. This book isn't going to finish itself, you know, and the progress I'm making just motivates me more!

[Brett]