Managing expectations

mind tricks

A month have passed since my last letter and a part of me feels I don’t quite know how to do this anymore, or what’s the point. It’s not that I don’t like to do these letters, but rather that what drives my newsletter is being directed elsewhere.

Bá told me a while ago that the energy I put on these letters could be used creating more stories, or more art – which would create an entire argument in my head about how ARTistic are these letters – and, as much as I could, that is what I did for the past month. I would see something in a comic book that’d make me think about the craft, and instead of writing about it, I tried to apply my reflection in one of the projects I’m working on. Something else stuck in my head after a late night drinking with friends, or after I saw a movie which I liked, and I tried to create situations in the stories I was writing to have the characters go through similar realizations. I heard podcasts and read stories and fueled my imagination and, for the past month, instead of talking about how that could inspire new stories, I sat down and started working on the new stories.

In short, this past month, even with its challenges, was well lived.

And it felt great.

Here’s my variant cover for Matt Kindt’s MIND MGMT new & improved #1. It was the first job I finished this year after returning from the beach. You might remember in one of the first letters of January as I mentioned I was doing a cover with watercolors to match the cartoonist’s own art style, and it was this one. I really liked how it turned out.

I’m expanding on the making of the cover for the paid subscribers (trying to make up for the month away). If you’re one of the select few, buckle up. Otherwise, I’ll see you next week.

(maybe this is a chance for you to consider becoming a paid supporter for the equivalent of one Aperol Spritz a month)