At first, I grumbled a bit. This is a book about divorce, that’s serious business!

But then I realized: this is the best feedback I could have gotten! It allows me to really let loose in the Nonsensical Department, and that’s where I feel right at home!

Instead of having Divorce Granny hit the parents over the head with her umbrella (a questionable act in itself, since violence in kids’ book is heavily frowned upon these days), I am giving the umbrella a life of its own...

Meet:

the Talkiebrella!

(Prataplu in Dutch)

The Talkiebrella is the result of an experiment gone wrong: it was supposed to be a Singing Saw, but then this came out.

The Talkiebrella talks, but only one word at a time.

Then again, it’s usually a pretty long word:

Thinking this up was so much fun I made myself giggle! Although: did I think this up? It feels more like the idea presented itself.

There’s something really mysterious about the power of imagination.

More often than not it feels like I’m just grabbing something that was already floating around out there, and solidifying it.

In the case of existing things this might be explained by morphogenic fields (which may or may not exist, but whatever you think of them, it’s undeniable that there’s an interconnectedness underlying everything).

But nonsensical stuff? Stuff that’s just silly? Stuff that’s never been thought or seen before? Where does that come from?

This reminds me of a dream I had ten years ago and that I made this comic about:

I searched for it again but no: there’s still no Karbiti Spieron that I can find on the ever widening web! So where did that come from...?

Where do new ideas come from? Some quantum soup of ideas and impulses that we all float around in, full of potentialities that only collapse into reality once we turn our attention on them?

I have no answer.

But I do like the idea of quantum soup.

Granny crowdfunding at 59%

If you’re wondering how my campaign for the Divorce Granny book is doing - Scheidoma has entered its final week and is now at 59%.

So if you’re Dutch (the book is in Dutch) and could do with a nonsensical book on a serious topic, please consider buying it through my crowdfunding:

HERE

(or you can wait until it comes out in August; but the crowdfunding benefits me directly and earns me more than the standard 10% royalties)

(which I’d have to wait for at least a year, while the crowdfund money comes in this month)

(and I could really use it right now - a little “service” light sprang up on my car’s dashboard just the other day… Oh boy! What is it this time?!)

And now for something completely different

When I searched the Karbiti Spieron comic on my old Tumblr account, I also found this one below, from ten years ago:

I still stand by that.

More positivity!

More nonsense!!!

(of the good, goofy kind)

It’s strange, this role reversal at this stage of life, both for my mom and for me.

Memories become poignant evidence that things are no longer so.

I drew the memory of my mom taking us exploring in the car before, here; it still makes me smile:

This is the cover:

Or, in English:

The title is actually really hard to translate. It hinges on the Dutch words for divorce, “scheiden”, and shit, “schijt”.

I’m imagining kids will go out of their minds reading “shitty granny”. I know I do!

But Divorce Granny isn’t all that shitty at all.

She’s the elderly lady that a club of kids from divorced homes get dumped at after school.

This is how that happened:

Divorce Granny’s idea of looking after kids is a bit… old-fashioned.

She basically puts them in a room with candy and games and lets them fend for themselves while she is off in the kitchen doing Very Important Stuff.

When Evie joins the club, Granny comes out of her kitchen.

Evie’s parents are in a fresh divorce, and her mom can’t stop crying.

She cries so much, it’s starting to flood the house:

This must be stopped!

Divorce Granny and her club of Divorce Kids come up with plans to make Evie’s mom laugh again…

First, they try the classic fart cushion. Everybody laughs at farts, right?

Wrong!

Maybe a joke will solve the problem:

Time for the secret weapon: chocolate!

Will this work on Evie’s mom…?

Do you want to know what happens next…?

I’m still working on it.

These are the last weeks before the deadline. If all goes well, the book will be published end of this summer.

If you’re Dutch and would like a front row seat at this project, join in with the crowdfunding on Voordekunst! You can pre-order signed copies, original art or even a first-aid-with-divorce kit!

Scheidoma Voordekunst

I’ll probably be reporting regularly about this project. It’s really fun to write and draw, and also exciting - a new publisher, potential new readers! After working in the Dutch comics scene for 25+ years, this is my first real foray into the world of Dutch children’s books, which is a whole ‘nother ball game.

As I’m working on this, I am reminded of the books that excited me as a child. Roald Dahl was high on that list:

Now that I’m listing these Dahl books, I realize that not all of them were illustrated by Quentin Blake! I see they’ve been republished since with Blake-drawings, so maybe this was a weird 1980s Dutch publishers’ choice?

It feels strange now, since Quentin Blake is surely THE iconic Dahl-illustrator. I can see how Blake’s drawing has influenced my approach to comics, too - the loose style, the “acting” of the characters…

Here’s a great Quentin Blake interview by the way, by author Michael Rosen:

Blake says something that resonates a lot with me: drawing is most akin to ACTING.

Yes! I feel that: when I draw, I get into a character, both in mind and posture, and I let that flow through my pen into the drawing.

By the way, I’m sure most of you have recognized my mother in how I draw Divorce Granny. Divorce Granny has definitely taken on a life of her own, but she started out as a sort of parallel character to my mom, who has often said she would have liked to be a secret agent or a master criminal - after all, who would suspect a sweet old lady?

Keep your eye on Divorce Granny! Who knows what she’s doing behind that closed kitchen door…?

Keep an eye on Scheidoma!

I’m battling two deadlines and I should be drawing.

Instead, I’m crowdfunding: between fulfilling my Kickstarter and setting up a new campaign at Voordekunst I try to come to grips with what happened with my “failed” crowdfund on Zoop.

And how to communicate it to y’all.

What DID happen on Zoop?

I tried to raise 6000 dollars for a re-release of my Philosophy book. The campaign had a roaring start: within a week, over half of the money was raised.

And then it stalled.

And I let it.

That was a hard thing to do. I have crowned myself the Crowdfunding Queen over here in Holland. This was my first “failure”.

Except it wasn’t failure. What happened was this:

I sent a message to the old publisher of Philosophy, to let him know I was giving my book a new life through crowdfunding - and he promptly offered to republish it.

Wow!

That brought on an interesting dilemma: what to do with the crowdfunding?

We all agreed, Zoop, the publisher and me, that the two could exist together: the publisher encouraged me to crowdfund this one for the fans and a little pocket money. I could make it worth the forty dollars for backers by embellishing it, and then later on he would publish a more sober version, at a lower price.

You can imagine that took away my steam for the campaign.

For years, I have planned out my strategy to bring back my Philosophy book to the English market and now - BAM - here’s my wish fulfilled. Just like that. By my “old” fairy godmother, who I thought in retirement.

It goes to show that crowdfunding success can be measured in different ways.

In the last week of the Zoop campaign, it was difficult to do nothing. I’m sure if I had done a bit of promotion, those 6000 dollars would have materialized. And I would have loved to use it to produce a very special limited edition of Philosophy, with end sheets and extra pages and what not; yes, a lot of work for a relatively small group of people, but I love special editions like that, and I love rewarding the small and devoted crowd.

But I didn’t.

Hopefully, in a year, those backers can pick up their physical copy of Philosophy at their own (comic) book store. Fingers crossed!

The advantages of a small crowd

I took the small, devoted crowd over to Kickstarter, where I campaigned for a small press collection of my recent webcomics.

(Well, technically I started the Kickstarter while the other campaign was still running; and the crowd of backers are not necessarily the same people)

This was a whole different kind of crowdfunding: I was asking just 500 euros to finance a 60-page stapled booklet that was relatively cheap to print and ship.

It was a succes!

The goal was reached within 24 hours and the campaign ended at a whopping 266% with 52 backers (plus a few people with no credit card who bought it off me directly).

About fifty people.

I often imagine they would all show up at my door for afternoon tea: that’s quite a group! Two classrooms full of people who are interested in my work, enough to spend a little money on it.

The group is small enough that I know most backers by name. I like reaching out to them individually to hear about their wishes for who to sign the book to, or what to draw for their “post-renovation collateral art” piece.

This is what I’ve been doing in the past weeks and yesterday I sent out the last of the packages, so the Kickstarter is now closed.

It was a smooth, fun process, from setting up a campaign for the first time on Kickstarter (love the platform! So many graphs and tools!) to producing the last of the art works. I got to collaborate with a few fans on some really meaningful pieces. I got to send out my book to no less than nine countries. (I like to secretly “visit” the addresses in Google Street. It’s such fun to see where my parcel will physically end up, thousands of miles away!)

Had the Kickstarter attracted twice the amount of backers, it would have been a completely different experience. I know, because in Holland I’m used to 100-150 backers per project. Still small enough to reach out to some of the bigger backers, but big enough to be more like “work”. (That’s why I work with my Dutch publisher on these; he handles the shipping)

The same goes, in a way, for this newsletter:

I have 1500 subscribers on Substack, and sometimes I cast a jealous eye over to colleagues like Kelcey Ervick (9300), Lian Cho (12K) and Jason Chatfield (45K!).

Bigger numbers means more success, right?

Except that it doesn’t.

(Lian Cho drew a beautiful comic about this which I urge you to read, here)

A bigger audience means a different kind of relationship, shifting from “engagement” to “work”. It means more stress and insecurities. Whereas I feel very comfortable with my crowd now. (that’s you!)

All of you who subscribe to my newsletter would fit in here: the beautiful Carré Theater in Amsterdam!

Wouldn’t it be fun to meet up over there some time? I could serve tea and act out my comics for you on stage!

Money

In terms of money: I’m very happy my Kickstarter earned me a few hundred euros.

In the Olden Days (the aughties) when I self-published my comics, printing was more expensive and I was happy to sell a handful of my books at conventions - where I had to pay for a table, travel costs and lunch. If a project broke even, it was a very, very good project. I still have boxes of books left over from that time, gathering dust in a closet. Kickstarter makes self-publishing fun again!

Making comics has never made me rich.

My top year, income-wise, was 2007: I earned 55.000 euros then (not with comics as such, but with live cartooning) which looked like a fortune to me, not realizing that after taxes I was left with what is considered a moderate middle-class income that would barely fund a mortgage and a family with children. I don’t have kids and don’t own a house, and that makes it easy for me to choose fun and creativity over chasing big jobs.

My poorest year was 2010, when I had a taxable income of just 3000 euros.

Yes, you read that right. Three thousand. It was one of the happiest years of my life: newly-wed to an artist (with a cheap apartment! :D ), working on my first book with a “real” publisher (yep, that was Philosophy). I’m lucky in many ways: with my generous family, with the Dutch state and its allowances for rent and care, with my colorist husband.

Earning money is something that I both don’t and do think about. When my reserves dwindle, I start to worry. Crowdfunding is definitely a way for me to ease those worries.

That’s why I’ve started another campaign!

Yes, the third this year!

It’s for a (Dutch!) children’s book I’m both writing and drawing, a text/comic hybrid for readers from age 9 and up - about ‘Scheidoma’ (’Granny Divorce’), the elderly lady you go to when your parents are getting a divorce.

This will be published at Blauw Gras Publishing later this summer. So I’m not crowdfunding to produce a print run, that’s all taken care of by the publisher. I crowdfund to sell signed copies and artwork in advance and to raise some extra income for me to tide me over in the coming months.

That’s a new approach for me, and it feels weird.

If I weren’t me but a fellow artist, I would give me the following pep talk:

Even though I’m very vocal about treating making comics as a business, I too can feel funny about asking people to buy my stuff. Especially when I’m doing so three times in a row, as is happening now. I worry about being seen as greedy (even though, if you’ve counted with me, all of my efforts since January have only netted me about 700 euros, after costs of printing, shipping and Kickstarter fees).

I worry about how my projects are all so different from each other:

I pivot from promoting Philosophy to autobio to a kids book; from English to Dutch - how can I expect all of my readers to follow along? Should I be more consistent in the type of stuff I make, choose one language, one genre with one specific target group?

That would certainly be more business-like.

But - this is me:

There’s just so many sides to me, so many things I get excited or worked up about that I want to share.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that the only thing worth pursuing is what makes me happy - not what makes other people happy, or what sells best.

Crowdfunding makes me happy.

Not for the money - although that’s not unimportant - but for that small to medium theater full of cool people that I get to interact with and entertain with my specific brand of all-over-the-place-entertainingness.

So.

I had to get this off my chest.

The crowdfunding for ‘Scheidoma’ has had a very modest start this week, and yes, that makes me nervous. But when I think about it, I only need to fill this theater (and the first two rows are already taken):

Maybe I only WANT to fill this theater.

So I can see who’s there.

So I can enjoy how you enjoy the ride.

“It’s not the quantity of your audience that matters, it’s the quality” says Brad Guigar on the ComicLab Podcast.

I need to remind myself of that.

Be assured that you, as a reader of my newsletter who has MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO HERE definitely count as the highest quality reader that I could ever wish for!

Thank you for following me!

(The dawn has dawned. Time to face those deadlines now.)

My family is here to attend the neighbors’ impressive Easter Fire tomorrow, and I’m producing art with my nephew and godchild Esra (15).

These are the laminated floorboards that are leftover after the renovation. Interesting material that begs to be made into Something Completely Different.

I’m cutting them into panels and offering them as extras in my Build & Play Kickstarter. Esra, who is already an accomplished graffiti artist, is joining me.

To really make it into renovation-related art I’m also using the leftover wallpaint. It’s not quite white, but mixed to a slightly yellowish off-white. I’m experimenting with different patterns.

I’m trying out different materials with which to draw on them. I have my trusty old nib pen & ink, gold and copper gel pens AND… glow-in-the-dark nailpolish!

Here’s me using all of those. Take note of the swishing cat tail in the upper right corner! And be sure to check the ending, where Pookie shows his underwhelmed reaction…

Here’s what it will look like in the dark. The photo is a little blurry, but you get the idea:

I think Pookie & Me is a nice theme for these artworks. Although here’s one I made without Pookie, next to the booklet that goes with it:

I really like the effect of the gold and copper in this one too. Look how shiny!

Here’s the process of a drawing in just ink, without the fancy glitters:

So… basically I have three possible designs for these comicated floorboard panels - or “post-renovation collateral art” as the scholars will surely call it in a hundred years:

Meanwhile, Esra produced this:

That’s “SMARE”.

A combination of SMART and RARE - indicating that you will be SMART to take this RARE opportunity to actually buy this piece of this undoubtedly soon-to-be-famous next generation artist!

I have added it as a reward to my Kickstarter: if it sells, Esra gets half of the money, which he will spend on expensive markers like these:

Check out more of Esra’s art on his instagram.

The Kickstarter campaign ends on Monday!

If you want your own unique and original floorboard-art piece, now’s your chance to get one!

Take me to the Kickstarter

If you order it through the Kickstarter (just 55 euros including the ‘Build&Play’ book and shipping!), I will reach out to you to get your preference for design 1, 2 or 3.

Thanks and a good weekend, however you spend it!

When it comes to drawing I prefer being a lone wolf - but every now and then someone comes to me with a project that’s too good to pass up…. like Jordy Kuys!

In Holland, Jordy gathered quite some fame as anti-bullying icon Lady BlaBla, even making it to the semifinals of Holland’s Got Talent in 2014. Jordy is a multi-talent who owns the stage, but most importantly: he’s a warm, empathic human being whom it is a joy to work with!

So I immediately got very excited when he came to me with a finished text for a children’s book, featuring characters from old Dutch children’s songs.

It makes total sense that Elsje Fiederelsje, Berend Botje, de Mosselman, Jan Huygen and even Old Mac Donald all live together in colorful Tralaland!

Here is Elsje Fiederelsje, both my first sketch and the inked version:

She’s singing this song:

Elsje turns out to be the daughter of Vader Jacob, who’s sick in bed:

I think most people know Vader Jacob as Frère Jacques:

Berend Botje, who is the son of the Mosselman, has a secret crush on Elsje. To distract Berend from his heartache, his father plays this game with him:

Who would have guessed that even Old Mac Donald found his way to Tralaland? He has a farm there of course, with cows, horses, chickens, sheep - and from now on also with Jan Huygen (son of de Graaf in Den Haag):

As you can see, it’s still a work in progress.

I’m done with the inking now and I have enlisted my husband Yiri for the coloring:

Earlier this week, Jordy started a crowdfunding on Voordekunst to finance the production of this book - including our fee, so I hope many people will pre-order the book this way. I can surely recommend it!

Tralaland on Voordekunst

It’s a really fun project to work on and I trust it has the potential to reach a lot of people, since this is something that speaks to both old and young. I find myself humming the old tunes a lot these days - did you know some of them originate from as early as the 1700s?

Here’s an animated version of the cover of the book, showing all the characters swinging to the beat at the big feast of Tante Kee:

Spoiler alert:

Hanneke and Janneke are trying to sabotage the festivities!!!

Take me to Voordekunst!

If you’ve made it this far, please enjoy this clip of a 1997 house-version of ‘De Mosselman’ - it’s got nothing to do with this project, but is great fun to watch and might even teach you something about the Dutch…!

I doodled with real ink and nib, and here’s the result:

We took suggestions from people in the comments, like: “An elephant in love in spring”:

We had about 150 people watching!

Among them my husband Yiri T. Kohl, who drew along and produced this:

It was a lovely, leisurely chat. I sometimes miss working in a studio and being able to talk shop whilst drawing. This came very close and I hope we do it again some day - maybe even in person!

This prize is extra meaningful because the nominees are the most-lent-out comic albums from the central library of Groningen over the year 2025, which means that lots of people actually read it!

I’m also extra happy because Casa Kiki is a project I did together with my husband Yiri T. Kohl, and we put in a lot of sweat and tears. It’s nice to see those rewarded!

You can vote for this album here - the winner will be announced on March 21 at the Stripschapprijzen event at Forum Groningen, for which you can get free tickets here.

Extra extra nice is that this album features our greengrocer’s Marco - the most famous greengrocer of Amsterdam-West! Here’s a clip I made in 2022, when we surprised him with his story that had just come out in magazine Tina:

So fingers crossed! 😀

More Dutch news

A looong time ago, in 2006, I hitched onto Strips in Stereo by Jean-Marc van Tol by arranging a bootleg version of his project: several Dutch comic artists made comics of their favorite songs!

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Jean-Marc is selling the official version of Strips in Stereo again: a beautiful big LP-sized book - and if you order now you get the Bootleg with it for free!

Here’s the comic I made for the Bootleg - an illegal comickization of the song ‘Het ei’ by Dutch troubadour Jaap Fischer:

Here’s the original - have a listen and find out where I slightly altered the text:

You can see me drawing on LAMINATED FLOOR BOARD!

And hear me talk about the materials I use!

And explain why I hold my hand funny when I draw!

If you want to be at the Big Livestream with Jason, tune in here:

DMA with Jason Chatfield

And if you think my drawing on fake wood is the cleverest and artsiest thing ever (I think so!) and you need a panel for yourself in your life, go over to Kickstarter and claim your own! (it’s the 50 euro PLUS reward)

Kickstarter

Here’s a round-up of stuff going on:

Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

First of all, I’m very excited to be on a livestream with tomorrow! Jason is an Australian cartoonist and stand-up comedian based in New York with a small dog named Morris. His work has appeared in several prestigious titles (The New Yorker! Mad Magazine!) and he worked for a long time on Ginger Meggs, one of Australia’s longest-running comics, which rang a bell for me since I probably added the biography of its creator Jimmy Bancks to the Lambiek Comiclopedia at one time.

Impressive as his resumé is, Jason is first and foremost a really nice guy who, like me, loves to share his life and art on Substack. We’ll have lots to talk about! And, technology allowing, we’ll be drawing while we talk, and you can shout out suggestions in the chat!

Add it to your calendar!

We’ll talk at 4pm European time (when it’s 11am in New York) and if you want to catch us you’ll have to be there at that time! Or become a paid subscriber to Jason’s Substack (like me) so you can watch us later.

Kickstarter scams

The Kickstarter for a small-press print of my latest webcomics reached its goal in the first 24 hours!

That’s totally gratifying and made me confident enough to send the book to the printer’s already. It will be awesome to hold it in my hands soon - a hefty 60 pages; that’s not slice-of-life, that’s CHUNK-OF-LIFE!

Another interesting thing happened within those first 24 hours of my very first Kickstarter - a thing I was warned against but now experienced myself: SCAMMERS!

As soon as my campaign was live, before I had done any promo, someone signed up already for the highest tier, a “Chandu”, who wrote this in the comments:

I’ve heard of this kind of scam from “comics uncles” Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett on the ComicLab Podcast: you’re invited to a conversation away from Kickstarter (like being lured into a dark alley), then there’s the promise of them backing you with even more money but somehow you have to forward them that money first… after which they disappear, of course. As this Chandu did, when I did not respond.

Then I got this message in my work mail (NOT the mail address I use for Kickstarter, which was a red flag already), from kickstartersupport@gmail.com (a gmail address for such a big company is also a red flag):

Needless to say, I did not take this “limited opportunity”. No idea how they would have scammed me, but I’d advise to be suspicious of anything like this that comes your way early in a campaign…

Then it got scarier.

I received this, in my Kickstarter-affiliated mail, from “Notificationbot via Kickstarter”, which showed the return address notification@kickstarter.com (looking pretty genuine), with the subject “New message about Build&Play” (including the name of my campaign):

All the links in this mail (which I could see while hovering over them - DON’T CLICK ON THEM!) pointed back at a domain emails.kickstarter.com and apart from the garbled bullet points there are no typos or strange wordings in this message, which makes it look authentic.

At exactly the same time, I got a second email, same sender and subject:

This got me sweating. Although I still suspected it was a scam, the level of believability and urgency got my blood pressure up.

I did a search for “notificationbot kickstarter” and found several Facebook postings like this:

I feel a little bit like a country mouse, being used to the gentle crowdfunding landscape of Dutch platform Voordekunst - and now I’m in the big city of Kickstarter, getting accosted by shady characters at every corner!

Luckily, messages like this stopped after the first 24 hours.

Printing hack for Dutch cartoonists

As I wrote: I sent the book Build&Play to the printer’s already! And made an interesting discovery…

For years, I have done my small-press printing at Drukzo.nl, a Dutch online service that delivers quality booklets at the lowest price. Drukzo is now HelloPrint, the same company but operating Europe-wide, with facilities in fifteen countries.

I put in my order at the Dutch site like this:

245,09 euro for 100 booklets - a price far cheaper than other Dutch online printers, and one that I’m used to from Drukzo.

Just out of curiosity, because I am in Germany now, I put the same order in their German site:

128,51 euros! That’s almost HALF of the Dutch quote!!!

You can guess which offer I went by…

So fellow Dutch comic artists: if you have a small-press book to print, check the German HelloPrint! It might be worth it!!!

Wayne’s Comics Podcast

A few weeks ago, just after my Philosophy campaign at Zoop started, I had a lovely podcast talk with Wayne Hall, which can be heard through here:

Major Spoilers

Wayne’s Comics Podcast #735: Interview with Margreet de Heer

Margreet, who is a former comics laureate of the Netherlands, introduces readers to a few key philosophers and concepts and makes us think for ourselves! Philosophy is described this way: “Margreet de Heer delivers a surprisingly fun and really intriguing look into an area in life that many of us consider occasionally but end up taking for granted.” We …

Read more

2 months ago · 2 likes · MajorSpoilers

Josh Lieb and I did it again!

I love getting inspired by drawing prompts, and Josh Lieb posts an idea for a cartoon on Substack every day!

I was lured into doing one of them again, and I believe this is the first time EVER that I drew the trope of the silhouette through the glass (which is not easy!):

ComicLab fun

I mentioned ComicLab above: this show about comics and making a living from comics is an absolute staple of my daily life as a cartoonist (they have eight years of weekly podcast to binge, full of laughter and great advice!).

Some time ago, after making fun of foreign accents like my own Dutch brawl, hosts Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett issued the invitation to comment on what their American accents sound like to foreign ears.

I sent them this audio file:

It was featured on this show - along with this cartoon I made:

There!

That’s the end of the news!

Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow in the livestream, or below in the comments; always happy to connect!

What a whirlwind these past two months have been!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

If you’d like a memento: I HAVE decided to make a printed book of all 59 Journuary/Februdiary pages, and started a Kickstarter:

HERE

Since my main goal is to be able to have a few copies for myself and to give to my family, I have kept the goal rather low - just to cover the costs for printing and shipping. A booklet including shipping costs 15 euro (about 18 dollars).

This is also a great way for me to finally dip my toe into Kickstarter - I have been backing artists there since the beginning of time but never dared to use it for myself. This project seems perfect to start with!

HAPPY END!!!

Look at that floor! And the windows! So clean!

It looks like I can soon wrap up my FebruDiary and there will be no Marchiary… Diamarchary… no continuing in March!

Partly because I can’t find a good name for it, but mostly because the renovation will be complete, all loose ends neatly tied up!

Wow, what a two-month adventure this has proven to be! Probably two of the most pivotal months in my life…

When I’m done, all of these diary-comics would neatly fit into a printed issue, which I would love to make! It would be truly small-press: a 60-page booklet (A5) that’s not too expensive to print and send - so I’m considering doing a Kickstarter for it…

Thanks for answering - your feedback will help me make a decision on this!

(Yes, I KNOW I’ve still got a crowdfunding going at the moment, but… this is a completely different product, right…? And now is the momentum! Spring energy!!!)

That was the most nerve-wracking overture to a crowdfunding I ever had! And then the most exhilarating start and first 24 hours! The trend didn’t hold up by the way, but I am at 3584 dollars now, which is well over halfway towards the goal!

It was really nice to be interviewed by The Comic Book Yeti - you can read the result here; I even drew a bunch of pictures to go with it!

My interview on Wayne’s Comics Podcast is not up as of yet, but will be soon: here.

And of course the campaign is still going:

Here!

Jump in for awesome rewards!

If you want to read more about my crowdfund addiction, check out this piece I wrote during my last campaign:

And this is what my husband drew about us:

I’m not necessarily big on Valentine by the way - but I’m all for celebrating love at every opportunity, so why not in February?

If you want to know more about Zina and our ‘paid polyamory’, I suggest you go here:

If you’re interested in how I make these diary-comics - I’ve exported this 9 minute video from Procreate, showing all entries from February so far:

As you can see, I work in one file (with lots of layers) and don’t make sketches, but I do redraw, rescale and reposition when necessary.

What I find interesting is that I seem to be able to retell my life in little 4-5 day chapters, with different themes and small story-archs. Do I do that, or does Life do that? The themes usually emerge only after a few days have gone by, by which I get a better idea of how to draw them.

The theme of the next batch will be my crowdfunding, by the way!

Here’s the promo video I made:

I’ve spent the past year-and-a-half pre-publishing Philosophy on Substack and had great fun doing it. Especially the chapter on the well-known philosopher George Carlin took a real flight and went a little viral! But also my rendering of The Allegory of the Cave was received well and got lots of visits.

I’m very happy this book goes out physically into the world again (if the campaign succeeds, that is!). If you’d like to get your copy, please click here.

Be sure to order it today as there’s still Early Bird Specials going on!

I’ve also made some commissions available, which are orderable also when you don’t order the book, so be sure to check them out.

I could draw you with your favorite quote:

I could even draw you anything you want in a one-hour videocall!

Take me there!

That’s it for now! Februdiaries will resume shortly! Although I can’t guarantee I won’t throw some more Philosophy promo your way in the coming weeks - this new crowdfunding adventure is just too exciting!

Pookie inspects the pipes:

Good job!

So much going on…

That’s why I keep a diary!

Journuary (thanks Hallie Bateman for starting it!) brought me a renewed zest for this Substack! I started posting comics here about my life two and a half years ago, in a style that served me very well then (I was just learning my way around the iPad).

But lately, that form has felt too… belabored? Stale? It didn’t come as easily to me as in the beginning - maybe because over time, more and more thinking went into it: this narrative with my mom, where does it go? How do I present myself? Where the first comics came out effortlessly, I felt I had to think about them more.

(I actually have a whole list of anecdotes with my mom that are waiting to be sculpted into witty and thoughtful comics - but that’s the thing: once you plan to make a witty and thoughtful comic, something changes in the creative process. Maybe it has become too much like… work?)

Anyway: these Journuary comics helped me tap into spontaneous autobiography again and it feels wonderful!

After 31 days of this, a narrative inescapably emerges and it makes me curious too, to see how this all will develop. Especially with the renovation, this is an exciting and important time to chronicle.

So on to Februdiary…!

(Thanks, wordsmith ! 😀)

P.S. Here’s the link to the Sleeping With Celebrities podcast: maximumfun.org/podcasts/sleeping-with-celebrities/ - worth a listen if you want soothing voices in the background to relax with!

Here’s the picture I found:

On the right is my mom, all of 21 years old, as a student of Theology at the University of Texas (a year away from her studies in The Netherlands at the University of Leiden - pretty special that she got to do that at that time!); on the left my famous professor grandfather (looking very professory) and my elegant grandmother in the middle - they were around my age then, 53!

The feelings from my Dark Night of the Soul have all but subsided - and with them, the pain in my abdomen.

I’m considering starting the crowdfunding (for Philosophy) after all. Although, I don’t know… It’s my first international crowdfunding and I suddenly feel very, very insecure… out of my depth… what if it’s all too early? What if I’m not up for it?

Thanks for following along with my life! As you can see, there’s lots going on - I might even extend this Journuary into February!

My favorite Bond for a looong time was Skyfall. But I must say No Time To Die surely rivals it!

I suddenly remembered that I once critiqued a James Bond movie in one of my webcomics (around 2016)!

I did some digging and here it is: