awcomix

Wordle still continues to be a daily dose of normal in a weird time. I don't try to play competitively with Wordle, meaning I just do it for fun and not obsess about how many rows it takes. However, when I find myself on row 4 and I'm still not really getting anywhere I break out a sheet of paper r or post-it notes and quickly draw a series of 5 underlines. 

Zine is short for magazine and pronounced ('zeen' not 'zoine'), is a self-published booklet, usually small and given away freely or sold for cost. In many ways, zines defy definition. They're strongly tied to subcultures such as the Punk and DIY scenes, they emphasise a do it your self mentality with a lack of artificial pretences.

Lately, I've been experimenting with making comics quickly to share on Instagram. And when I find myself doing something on repeat, I like having ready-made templates to remove some of the friction of getting started when you have all the right layers and guides already set up.

After an initial curmudgeon reaction, I gave in and played Wordle...

I posted recently about trying to come up with a new name for a comic. I think I may have settled on a winner.

The above image was formed from a combination of ideas from three separate books that I have read. The books are, Growth Mindset (Dweck), Peak (Ericsson), and Grit (Duckworth). 

I signed up for Gumroad many years ago, as I always like to test out new platforms and see if they'll be a good avenue for sharing my art. I set up a few initial products (mostly comic PDFs) but to be honest I never really put a lot of time and effort into the site.

I made a couple of comics I was feeling happy with and then I noticed I just stopped cold when I was just hitting a good stride. I examined it a little a realised that I had a version of stage fright. 

  For those of you following along at home. I've had a renewed passion for blogging. Today I would like to send a thank-you out to a lucky reader. I’m going to choose a person from my awcomix newsletter to receive a postcard from me with original art!

I was surprised this year that I didn't see Instagram top 9 pop up as a trend. I think it may have been due to the art vs artist version pop-up. I think there is a general mistrust of Instagram's algorithm and also handing over your metrics to a third party to create your top 9. Here's how I got around that.