Circle the Earth

 Hello my friends. I’ve started a new project, which is both a book and a real-time adventure. I’ve been posting about it across social media but, as always, I seem to be neglecting my own website. No more!

In about ten days I will be setting out from my kitchen door, with just a knapsack and a sketch kit, on a quest to circumnavigate the planet Earth using (to every extent possible) only surface transportation. This means no flying! (Though I know I will have to break that rule in at least one instance). 

I will also be making and sharing art and comics all along the way. 

You can read MUCH more about this project in the Patreon post HERE:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/something-new-3-100871431

And Patreon is where I’ll be posting most of the content. You can sign up as a free member! But if you want to help me bring what I hope will be a beautiful book into the world then by all means sign up for the $3 tier. 

Here are a few photos of the pre-departure comics from the book I’ll be drawing in along the way:

See you out there in the wild,

—Ben

Framing Story

 This is a print of an early drawing of Leonardo’s that I bought when I was 16 years old (probably only a few years younger than he was when he drew this). I got it in the gift shop of the Uffizi gallery in Florence and it’s been rolled up in a tube ever since. I’ve carried her with me from house to house for— 

…well, for half a lifetime, really.

Just the other week I had her framed and, somehow, it was the perfect moment. 

My tiny studio has been steadily accumulating talismans, totems, and charms. Everywhere I look there are mementos full of meaning. Stories fill the nooks and crannies.

And, so far, there’s still room for me. 

*wee Ben c. 1995

The Walker

 It’s the most frequent scribble in my notebooks, that little analogue that is Ben-but-not-Ben. Always walking, always thinking. Often head down. Frequently with a satchel or bag. A wanderer. A traveler. 

Of course it’s nothing new to say that the legs the the brain are connected, that walking and thinking go hand-in-hand. But for me scribbling completes the trifecta, the Creative Trinity. 

Move the legs, move the brain, move the pen. 

And repeat. 

The legs wander, the brain is messy, the lines are crooked. But if you ask me that’s where the real beauty lies.

So keep wandering.

Keep thinking.

And, if it’s your thing, keep scribbling.

One Kind of Adventure

 I've been reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's Constantinople journey books, A Time of Gifts and (currently) Between the Woods and the Water. The prose is drippingly rich and evocative—best savored in small bites over morning coffee (before the house wakes). The books synthesize the heedless adventure of youth and the zest of maturity. And, in a few miraculous instances, they really give you a glimpse of the vanished world of prewar Europe. 

So now I'm stepping further in.

update: ha ha, they're everywhere: 

Afternoon Lines

 Kind of like this but not exactly. 

(not quite) On the Road Again

 Here is a sketchbook drawing of the Handley Library in Winchester, Virginia.*

The Handley is a beautiful, well thought-out building with a lot of little details that hit home for me and just the spooky kind of historicity that I love. There are spiral staircases galore—skinny cast iron ones, and wide wooden ones that twist up into the dome. There’s also a sort of low-ceilinged middle level that you can’t quite get to, but the old shelves and 1960s slatted halogen tube lights are so exactly like the ones from the old Wells library of my childhood that it sent shivers down my spine. 

Anyway, all this is just a preamble on the way to saying that next Saturday (October 23rd) I will be engaging in my first in-person event in 2 and a half years (the last one being a SCBWI event in Kansas City). This event, courtesy of the Winchester Book Gallery, will be held in the Handley library’s beautiful subterranean auditorium (complete with a secret hatch on the stage that leads to a ladder that goes down into a huge cistern). 

I’m a little bit nervous, though, truth to tell.

And it’s not just Covid. (Though it is that, too. If you’re thinking of coming please do read the guidelines).

When Ida died I was only a week away from heading out on a big tour to promote Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl. It wasn’t long after that the pandemic began. And I was grateful, in a way, for the long hiatus from traveling and speaking, because for a long time seeing new people in that context was …unthinkable. Sure there have been virtual events but with those I am still ensconced in the safety of my studio. 

But recently I’ve been thinking about it again—the books signings and conventions. I’ve been thinking about those days when I would sling my battered old duffle on my shoulder (the same, stalwart adventure bag I’ve used since high school!) and head out into the tumult of travel toward some new horizon. Sometimes, lately, I put on a jacket and throw that bag over my shoulder and look in the mirror and think “this is what I would wear if I were traveling.”

I’m not traveling yet.

The Handley Library is my own back yard, really, so it’s not “traveling.” But it’s a toe dipped back into the pool. And as much as I’m nervous, I’m also looking forward to it. 

Maybe I’ll see you there. 

 

*okay clearly I am developing a bit of a love-affair with asterisk'd footnotes… I started this library sketch directly across the street at an outdoor table at Tropical Island Cafe, which is run by a Jamaican family and serves the best jerk chicken and plantains. It’s got a real kick and will get you sweating.

Morning Lines

Sort of. But not exactly. 

THE LURKER

Part of my weekly routine, now that things are opening up a bit, includes a run up to Winchester to drop off my daughters for a ballet class. This usually leaves me with one odd hour to spend in whatever way I like.

A whole hour to spend however I like! Sometimes I can hardly believe it.

Most weeks, unless the day is just too glorious to pass indoors,* I visit my favorite used book store: Blue Plate Books. It’s only about a mile from the ballet studio. They know me now. I always get a cheerful hello and a smile when I walk in.

The shop is not much to look at from the outside (it’s next-door to a barber shop and the front window looks out onto a Wendy’s drive-through), but inside you find a very beautifully curated space. It’s like the interior of a treasure chest except all the gold and gemstones have been replaced by books and comfortable chairs. It’s a hidden gem, is what I’m saying.

There’s a lot of talk about books being portals to adventure—little rectangular hatches that let you escape from the mundane world into something more exciting. But what I relish from a good bookshop is a feeling of safety. Soft music plays as you sag into an armchair in a cocoon of outward-facing spines adorned with all the familiar names: Woolfe and Wilde; Dumas and Montaigne; Byatt, Doyle, King, and Gaiman—these never-met friends whose voices are so familiar. Shelves are arranged to create hidden nooks. Spinner racks playfully display the lurid, strange, and sensual covers of vintage mysteries, tales of terror, and strange new worlds. And the atmosphere is all be-cloaked in the fragrance old old paper.

(That smell. It’s the smell of being four—toddling among the shadowy shelves in the old Wells Library in Lafayette, when quotes from J.M. Barrie could still be seen cut into the stone hearth in the children’s room, while my mom filled her old canvas bag with a new week’s reading. It’s the smell of being seven, sitting on the worn carpet of the tiny Saint Mary’s library and listening to Sister Rose Maureen read Charlottes Web. It’s the smell of being eleven and riding my bike to Blue Moon Books to hunt through the stacks of old comics for missing issues of Elfquest. It’s the smell of Story.)

It’s no surprise, given my chosen life and work, that haunting bookstores is one of my favorite things. Not all bookstores are the same, of course. Finding a good one is like finding a friend. You don’t let go.

*On those fine days I wander Winchester’s gorgeous old cemetery, dreaming up the stories of the dead, or stroll down the Old Town walking mall, catching snatches of the stories of the living.

OF MIGHTY CABBAGES AND GOBLIN KINGS

Hello friends!

As you may know, my most recent book, Mighty Jack and the Goblin King, was released earlier this month. Once again I'm going on a short journey, crisscrossing North America to meet readers and sign books. This time, at most of the events, I will be "in conversation" with another author/artist. This will almost without a doubt make these evening bookstore events much, much more lively and interesting.

I've made a graphical poster image for the tour (posted below) with most of the pertinent information. Underneath that I will post links to the various venues.

I really would love to meet as many of you as possible. Tossing stories out into the wide world is great, but meeting readers in person is a particular and powerful magic.

And so, without further preamble, I give you:

Green Bean Books

University Bookstore

Once Upon a Time

The King's English

Red Balloon

The Eric Carle Museum

Toronto Public Library

McNally Robinson

Summer of Mermaids Art Sale

Hey friends!

For those of you who have a train to catch, here's a short version of this post: I’m having a summer art sale. There are things up in my Etsy shop. The link is right here:

BEN'S ETSY SHOP

And so we find ourselves in the middle of another Summer. Here’s a long-overdue, kind of rambling post.

As I type this it’s late afternoon and I’m in my Very Secret & Very Quiet Writing Hideaway. There is a Summer Thunderstorm brewing outside. It’s lovely.

Sitting next two me, here in my Very Secret & Very Quiet Writing Hideaway, is my new-used 10 speed bicycle. It has fenders! It has a rack on the back! It was a gift from my friend-and-mechnic, Justin! I'm planning to strap an old milk crate to the rack so that I can cart various sundries back and forth from my VS&VQWH. Here’s my new-used bike:

(thanks Justin!)

And here’s me in my VS&VQWH:

Clever readers will have guessed (correctly) that I put the timer on my iPod and staged a photo to makes me look like a Serious Writer. That’s part of my plan. You see, if everyone thinks I’m a Serious Writer then I will definitely get these projects I’m working on done. That’s how being a Serious Writer works. (I think.)

Anyway, I will have a lot more to say about my VS&VQWH in an upcoming post. There’s some exciting stuff on the horizon. But for now let’s move on to the mermaids. And for that, we’ll have to travel back to May…

In May I was traveling through Macedonia as part of the U.S. Speaker Abroad Program. I was talking about visual storytelling at schools and universities. I was visiting “American Corners” in different towns and being driven hither and yon by the American Embassy. And I was sneaking out at odd hours to explore the old Turkish Market in Skopje. Here are a few pictures from Macedonia:

All the while I was aware that mermaids were cropping up all across the internet as part of a cleverly-titled art challenge called “Mermay” The challenge, simply, is to draw a mermaid each day in May (I think these monthly challenges got their start with Jake Parker’s “Inktober”). I saw the mermaids and I thought “no way am I doing that.”

But then of course I drew a couple mermaids on a tablecloth and I was off to the races.

I wasn’t able to do a full month’s worth of Mers, but I ended up with a good fifteen. Here are a few of my favorites:

I had a blast drawing these, and posting them over on Instagram. It took me some time to figure out what to do with them, but I finally had them printed as a set of Memory Cards, like my Memory Dragon set from a few years ago.

Memory Mermaid is available over on my Etsy Shop as part of my wee Summer Art Sale. There are also a few prints and some original pages from Mighty Jack.

And now the rain has come and a cool breeze is blowing through the VS&VQWH and I have a story to write.

See you soon.

TOURING COMICS AND ETSY

Okay, business first: I have REOPENED MY ETSY SHOP. I have a limited supply of PRINTS and ORIGINAL ART. If you're interested in such things then please, by all means, follow this link and poke around.

And now on to the fun stuff: 

So I spent the golden closing week of September, and the first couple days of October traveling through the South and the Midwest, visiting schools and bookstores and libraries. It was a little book tour for _Mighty Jack_.  Touring is intense. Sometimes you feel like a traveling salesman, peddling tired stories to people who could care less, other times you feel like you really are sharing something of yourself with real people who are thrilled to see you.

As with all tours, there were highs and lows. There were moments of magic and real kindness, and times of exhaustion. Old friends (and one old high school teacher!) showed up to my events. I even got to travel with my dad for a leg of the journey and stop in, all-too-briefly at my parent's house.

I've done book tours before, but this time I tried to squeeze in some tiny comics to chronicle the journey. These were drawn in spare moments, on airport floors, hotel desks, in planes and coffee shops. 

Here are my On the Road Comics: 

This next one is one of my examples of gesture drawing for students

This next one was drawn ialong with my friend Andy Runton: