Weekly Update #10

Hello, Patrons! 

It's been a while since my last weekly update. More than year, in fact! Wow. How time flies. 

I've noticed that despite my inactivity, some of you have maintained your pledges, and I can't possibly express how much that means to me.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO?

I currently work two part-time jobs: as a library custodian and as an aide to an elderly disabled woman. I like both, though I get quite tired sometimes!

I've started singing in a choir again; I'm a bass 1. This season we're doing Faure's Requiem and Earl Kim's Thoughts on Keats and Coleridge. Both are very beautiful.

I attend a monthly graphic novel book club, which has introduced me to many comics that I love, some that I like, and I couple I do not care for at all! It's been really great.

I'm still living in Massachusetts. My partner is (hopefully) finishing up their degree at the end of this school year; we're unsure of what happens after that, as it depends on where they are able to find a job. We don't particularly want to move again, but there's a lot of competition for librarian positions in this area, it being right next to the school.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN WORKING ON?

I've mostly been trying to keep up with my daily diary comics, as well as participating in Inktober. 

Like the past two years, I've been doing this year's Inktober with a glass dip pen, filling one page with 31 small drawings.

(Inktober 2017)

(Inktober 2018)

WHAT HAVE I BEEN CONSUMING?

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I've been re-listening to the audiobook. It's very different from the  Harry Potter series, very well written, and very very gloomy. There are lots of characters who are hard to tell apart from each other at first, the plot goes nowhere at a very slow pace, and the entire thing is mostly concerned with the petty interpersonal problems between the characters set against the background of small-town politics. I love it very much and have a hard time believing that it was really written by Rowling. 

Best American Comics 2019 edited by Jillian Tamaki

Jillian Tamaki has been involved in two comics I love a lot, SuperMutant Magic Academy and This One Summer, so I was excited to see what she would pick as an editor of an anthology, and I was not disappointed! I'm not always a fan of Best American Comics anthologies, but this year had a really cool selection. 

Passing For Human by Liana Fink

I previously only knew of Liana Fink as someone who did cartoons for The New Yorker (I am not a fan of New Yorker style cartoons), so I wasn't excited when it was suggested at the monthly graphic novel book club that her book should be next. Boy was I surprised! I enjoyed her writing style, and the scribbly drawings that I had disliked as one-panel cartoons were charming and expressive in a longer format. Speaking of format, I loved the way the chapters were divided, and am still thinking about it. 

4 Kids Walk Into A Bank by Matthew Rosenberg (writer), Tyler Boss (artist), and Thomas Mauer (letterer)

Very short for a graphic novel, but it uses every page to it's full advantage! The definition of a dark comedy. Spends most of the book goofing around and setting things up, then picks up speed quickly in the last bit. I'm obsessed with the way the art and panel structure conveys physical comedy, and the way the set up/pay offs are planted without seeming heavy-handed or unnatural. I've reread this several times.

The Collected Journals and Diaries of E.M. Forster

Anyone who's been following my instagram stories has probably noticed me posting about my readings on E.M. Forster! He wrote Maurice, one of my all-time favorite novels, and my interest in him grew from there. While visiting my brother at his grad school, he checked out a bunch of books on him for me. I've already read The Life To Come: And Other Stories, a collection of his (mostly) unpublished short stories, and I'm currently reading through three volumes of his complied journals and diaries. After that, I hope to read through Selected Letters.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW!

If you have any questions or stuff you've wanted to talk about to me, do leave a comment below! 

Hope you're doing well!

<3,

Dave