babe wake up, a new zine just dropped
presenting Sipping Season, a hopeful balm to helplessness w/ Silver Sprocket plus new works w/ Crucial Comix, a workshop, local comic reading & more!
hey hey, long time no newsletter! in retrospect, “monthly” was a very ambitious goal, lol… so much has happened since my last update 5 months ago, but before all that - and just in time for US elections - I present to you my new zine with Silver Sprocket:
Sipping Season is a companion zine to COOK LIKE YOUR ANCESTORS in that it’s full of comics and recipes, but it is far more a retrospective of witnessing one year of genocide in Palestine, with thoughts on what we can do to turn our feelings of helplessness into action that ensures a future where this violence ends, and can never happen again.
I hope people can gift this to friends, family, neighbors, etc, that are in need of a counter to hopelessness. I’ve never felt the cycle of information, rage, grief, fear, and numbness our society demands as clearly as I have in the last year (which is really saying something) but I have also found that - at least for me - there's nothing better for assuaging fear and helplessness other than precaution/preparation and connection... and that working towards that can also be joyous and beautiful!
so here's this fruity thing... it's 6x6 inches, 28 pages, and is way more like a shiny CYLA sequel than a casual zine. <3
speaking of zines, here’s what’s happening next month:
I’m teaching a workshop this Sunday with the new & amazing comics publisher Crucial Comix! log on with me for a fun post-election decompression time & leave with the your favorite recipe immortalized in comic zine form to share easily with friends, family, or for your own archives.
the class is 2 hours & begins at 11 am (pacific) 2 pm (eastern) 15:00 (brasília) or for my EU folks, 18:00 (GB, UK) & 19:00 (central european)
the classes are sliding scale, but there are also limited seats set aside for those who can’t afford it. (e-mail smirk[at]crucialcomix[dot]com for that info!)
LA locals who may be in need of some new headshots, pet portraits or holiday photos: some local photographers are running a fundraiser for mutual aid in Gaza on tuesday the 12th! I’ll be running around helping. you get some professional pics, people in Gaza get to eat. it’s a win win. e-mail the homie at pradawil(at)gmail[dot]com to RSVP.
aaaand I’ll be at Other Books in Boyle Heights on Sunday Nov 17 with a bunch of other amazing artists doing a comic reading fundraiser for Palestine! all we ask is a $5+ donation to the gofundme. biggest shoutout to the kind & talented Sam Nakahira for organizing this (and making this cute poster)!
in digital news: I have some new work that’s found a home at Crucial Comix, including a preview of a newly comic-ified edition of my 2018 zine Native or Nah?
neither indigenous land stewardship, foodways, or landback were terms I had in my vocabulary when I first made this, and yet they are principles that have come to guide my work and my life... I am so glad to have had a reason to revisit this. you can read the first couple pages here or …
Crucial also published this breathtakingly embarrassing true story I made into a comic for pride a few months back! this not only prompted the ex-coworker featured in it to reach out, leading to a healing conversation for us both, but it also earned me the sweetest emails from emerging queers… truly the most lovely full circle I could’ve wished for… lol.
and over the summer…
I spent a couple of weeks at The Hambidge Center, a naturalist’s dream & gorgeous artist residency in the ancient Shaconage (pronounced sha-kon-o-hey) - that’s Cherokee for the Place of Blue Smoke, (now often referred to the Great Smoky Mountains). this was my second artist residency, and I highly recommend it for just about any type of artist, especially if you live in the southeast US and can drive there!
I spent my mornings in a cabin in a forest, watching deer pass by while reading Toni Morrisson and Bahian writer Itamar Vieira Junior’s Crooked Plow, which broke open my heart and held it. it has uncanny amounts of parallels to GO BACK & GET IT, the OGN I am working on (whose thumbnail pages are pinned to the walls in photo #3 above) and felt like a spiritual & familial affirmation in beautifully translated Brazilian Portugese.
favorite book of the year, hands down.
the week that followed was dedicated to graphic novel research, which was always the dream when pitching GO BACK & GET IT in the first place. my partner and I traveled down the coast, exploring the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor, sea islands, and the South’s general vibe. it was certainly something, but that’s a story (essay? diary comic?) on that for another time. this land and its people are deeply haunted by history most refuse to acknowledge. but there is so much beauty and power to be found in those that stand their ground to face it, and we met some wonderful people.
returning to LA was a culture shock, and I furthered this by going to my first ever convention: San Diego Comic Con!!? it was a lovely time hanging & signing with the Sprocket folks, and I spoke on some panels about leftism and nonfiction comics with some really dope writers and artists! see the whole post on that here.
if you’d like to listen to the panel on Revolutionaries in Comics (photo #4), Collective Action Comics was kind enough to record it here.
I also was recently on the podcast Your Own Magic talking spirituality, plants, cultural reconnection and our books with fellow authors Nyasha Williams & Kenda Bell... listen in here.
I also had the loveliest interview with C.S. García Martínez of the Cartoonist Cooperative about the making of COOK LIKE YOUR ANCESTORS!
I have so much more to share in the coming months, but that’s it for now. as always, you can stay in the know with all the sketches, progress updates & previews on my patreon.
wishing you & yours all the protection, calm, and decompression in the face of these elections, and see you on the other side <3