Mike Dawson

A Year of Making Comics - Update #13

Added 2023-04-21 15:25:14 +0000 UTC

I'm pleased to share the first few panels of a new cartoon I'm in the midst of creating. It is my hope that this will be part of a new graphic review that I can publish in The New York Times.

I had a really great response from the last piece. The author Sigrid Nunez, whose work I love, sent me a really nice note to say how much she appreciated the piece, how it made her cry, and how she's having the page framed to hang on her wall. I also heard from her editor, who said it was the most moving review she'd ever read. And the editors at the NYT seem more open to new pieces from me than I'd gotten the vibe they were after my initial piece had ran. They rejected an older comic I'd written about Joan Didion that I was hoping to pass off on them, but seemed genuinely interested in me continuing to pitch them new ideas.

It's a funny business though, trying to write cartoon essays for $$. Not only do you need to know how to compose comics, and express yourself well, you also need, y'know, those ideas and material. I left for Spring Break with my family with nothing brewing, just a new novel to read, and came back with a brand new concept for a piece. These first five panels don't touch at all on what the novel is I'm intending to write about, but hopefully the connection will be clear once I get further along.