Letter

When I started on my public domain book design project last November I didn’t expect it to snowball into what it’s become. I figured I’d put out a book through Amazon or Ingram and that would be that.

Instead, the first one was immediately snapped up by a small press and, a few months later, I had a deal with a New York publisher for two books, with the very real possibility of many more to come. I’d self-published the first of those two and they wanted a new cover. I worked and reworked and reworked it until everyone was happy. There was no additional payment but I figured the extra labor might grease the wheels for a continuing financial commitment.

Everything was humming along apace until an email arrived stating that the publisher’s designers couldn’t use the print-ready files I’d sent and instead needed me to generate a text manuscript with instructions on where to place the images. Such a document did not exist. I assembled these books piece by piece, marrying text to image. I was taken aback by the request but sat down and made the thing they asked for.

A month passed and another email arrived. It had a sample of what the designers came up with. They changed typeface in places, changed the margins, and printed the author and book names at the top of every page. It was horrible and had little in common with what I’d made.

I didn’t write these books so my contribution is the art and the design. If you take apart those elements and reassemble them your own way it is no longer my work. I told this to the editor in my reply. He wanted to get on the phone and fix things. To see what he could do to make me happy. But there’s nothing to be done. I signed a contract and I’ll honor it. But these are no longer my books.

This morning I got an email from the designer requesting a link to the files. I wrote back that the editor had them. He requested I resend them, then wrote back that he couldn’t open the links. He wanted me to transfer them to another cloud storage site. That’s when I lost it. Told him to figure it out and not to contact me again.

Had a lovely talk in a park with June Skinner Sawyers.

Updated my events page.

Moving to another town is a time-honored way to give oneself a fresh start. Wipe the slate clean. Get rid of the old patterns. Change the scenery. Be reborn.

Sometimes, though, the thing you’re fleeing follows you, no matter how far you run or how hard you hope to be free of it. If the thing you’re hoping to fix is a marriage, it can become an albatross dragging you under, rather than letting you fly.

A new job tempts Krystle Ratticus to leave Chicago and try Milwaukee. Her new marriage is already floundering but she’s bent on making it work. This is such a familiar impulse. You don’t wanna keep failing like all the times before, so you double down. Put all your chips down on the one “lucky” number even though you know deep in your bones that number’s cursed.

Felix barely lifts a finger. He feels Krystle should pay the bills while he pursues his music pipedreams. He’s a user and she lets herself be used, believing her love and care will pull him out of the mire he wallows in. But no one can fix anyone else no matter how much they want to or how hard they try. Insert whatever truism you like best here because they’re all true. We all run our own race. Best that can be hoped for is to run alongside someone else for a time, maybe share a few gulps of water now and again. Let them get a breather. Share a laugh.

Krystle tries a bunch of jobs to get by but each eats her up a different way. She’s in a strange town with no support system, no one to turn to when things go sideways, tied to man who expects her to pull him along. It’s a goddamn disaster. Yet she keeps trying to make it work. They give up on Milwaukee and go back to Chicago, then the marriage goes tits up.

What I’ve always loved about Krystle’s writing is the plainspoken humor of the way she describes her jobs and relationships. The first zine I read of hers was The Greasy Spoon’s Weirdo Du Jour. It documents her time at a restaurant I knew very well. I liked the zine so much I tried to get my then-publisher to give her a book deal. Everything I’ve read of hers since confirms she should be publishing books. Not that, at this point, a book is any more legit or real than a zine. The technology is such now that anyone can put out a book-shaped thing. There’s no bigger percentage of people with anything to say than there ever was, going back to the advent of the printing press.

This is one writer who deserves a wider audience.

This new thing she’s made is tough and funny and kind of heartbreaking. Get yours here.

I wrote about Amalia Ulman’s movies, which I love.

As I’m about to board a plane to LA, I get an email I’d been dreading. It puts me in a foul mood throughout Soutwest’s cattle-call. So much that I refuse to give up my first-row aisle seat for a late-arriving paraplegic. I feel like a selfish asshole but am in no condition for another hit so soon.

I don’t fly often but each time I do I’m reminded of what an unpleasant experience it is. All I want is an aisle seat near the front so I don’t have to sit sideways and can escape ASAP.

Luckily, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio sucks me in enough to forget about my frustrations for a few hours. It is the next book I’m designing and illustrating.

I don’t have any strong feelings about LA one way or the other. This is a family visit, so I’m grateful it’s not the usual Boston. This is what I like about LA best.

I take a look at the mural I painted January. Seems like the California sun hasn’t killed it yet.

My niece is double the age I saw her last. She’ll be walking soon. She’s rapidly becoming a person.

I meet up with Bruce for a late lunch. We were supposed to meet in January but the fires prevented it. We talk for a couple hours. It’s often jarring to meet someone I’ve corresponded with intensively in person for the first time. But there’s little awkwardness between us. It’s easy, which is a relief.

This is his local diner. The waitress flirts with him relentlessly. After she leaves, he tells me he smelled liquor on her breath.

K asks for a drawing of the Creature from the Black Lagoon for a tattoo, so I spend my free time drawing him from various angles. He’s a looker without doubt.