Keith Lewis came into Tangible one day and pitched me an idea. He wanted me to illustrate a Chicago alphabet book that would serve as the first title of his new publishing imprint, Broken Nose Books.

I’ve known Keith over ten years. He was a regular at Hardboiled Coffee in Beverly, where I worked a couple afternoons a week. Then he took over a neighborhood bookstore called Bookie’s and turned it from a shabby place next to a 7-11 in a pocket strip mall to a nice, well-organized business. He had a second location in downtown Homewood for a time and I did book events at both locations.

All that to say that this was not someone who just said things. All too often in the book and art rackets people have good intentions and lofty aspirations; very few follow through. Boilerplate contracts, show dates, promised sales, and all manner of other good things have been dangled in front of my face over the decades. I used to get my hopes up but get burned enough times and you learn to become gunshy as self-preservation, if nothing else. Now, when someone floats something they want me to do, it’s just a thought-balloon until there’s money on the table.

I quoted Keith a price, saying I’d need half down to do anything and figured that would be the last I heard about it but there was a Venmo notification via email within a few days, so it’s been on since then. I’m about halfway done and it’s going pretty well. The book will be a sixty-page hardcover printed by the same people who did my art book.

I’m alternating days working on that with days on The Jungle. The prose is still a slog but there’s no shortage of images to work from. Between the two projects, it’s Chicago day in day out, which suits me just fine.

Got a few copies of the new paperback version of Old Style. If you order from me, the book is signed and hand-stamped with a custom bookplate. If you don’t want that personalized crap, pick one up from Bezos’ Bazaar or Deathstar Direct. They all come with an extra story that’s not in the hardcover.