Blood of My Blood - Part 4.2: A Secret

More to This House Than Meets the Eye

How’s your February going? Happy Valentine’s to the lovers out there. And for all of us in this age of disconnection, an article about connecting with others and community.

I’m unexpectedly finding the interactions between Zoe and her mom to be particularly fun to illustrate. I hope that comes through to you as a reader!

After this week’s Blood of My Blood release below, I touch on an earthquake in the comics industry—the bankruptcy of a (the) major distributor.

But first, Blood-

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Blood of My Blood is a magical realist graphic short story with horror undertones for everyone searching for their body's "Owner's Manual".

Need to catch up on the story so far? Links to all the parts are here:

Blood of My Blood

Part 4.1 « Home » Part 5

Part 4.2

Part 4.1 « Home » Part 5

Comics Cataclysm

Once the overwhelmingly dominant distributor of comics in the US, Diamond Comic Distributors’ declaring bankruptcy is a cataclysmic event in the comics world.

Fortunately for me, I’m make comics as a hobby, because I derive value and personal satisfaction from the storytelling, and don’t have much of a supply chain to be disrupted.

People will adapt, but the abrupt loss of Diamond’s distribution channels will put a ton of stress on the all the related upstream and downstream individuals and companies, the writers, illustrators, comic shop owners, printers, and publishers who rely on the ecosystem for their livings. I imagine everyone in the industry, and even those who’ve only been indie, if they’ve been in it for a while, knows someone who is affected, if not directly, themselves.¹

Looking across the media landscape, we can see that the old gatekeepers are tumbling down. On the plus side, a lot of creatives, myself included, now find their own avenues to share their work with the public (to the extent that anyone notices their work).

I’m not much of a spender and try to minimize accumulating things, and my reading list is already overpopulated with prose and graphic novel titles from the public library. But I think I’ll start supporting indie comics and graphic novels on a more regular basis, on Kickstarter and in my local comic shops.

I’m curious: How often do you buy books? And how do you come across the books you decide to buy?

1. Like how everyone in public service knows someone who’s been affected by the chaos at the federal level…