Hourly Comics Day 2023

It looks like I never did post my Hourly Comics from last year, but here they are from 2023! I'm mostly active on Instagram these days @cookingupcomics.

Hourly Comics Day 2021

My Hourly Comics from February 1st, 2021. I went back to the sketchbook this year since I work digitally most of the time. This was the 13th year I've participated! You can see the links to all past years comics in my post from 2020.

Hourly Comic Day 2020

This was my 12th year participating in Hourly Comic Day, when cartoonists from all over draw a comic panel or two for each hour they're awake on February 1st. It fell on a Saturday this year which was a good excuse to draw digitally on my iPad and try out some new techniques in Procreate. I was posting them on my Instagram and Twitter throughout the day, but I figured I'd still post everything here in keeping with the tradition of past years.

I always love to see what my friends and strangers did on this day and it's fascinating that I've got a record of the same day over the span of so many years. Where I was, what I was doing, who I was with, my eventual transition from night owl to almost morning person as I age. It's like an archaeological dig through my past. Here are links to my comics from previous years:

2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008

Dog Training For Kids Book!

Hello, sadly neglected blog. I've got some exciting news! The middle grade book I illustrated in roughly a month and a half is available starting Tuesday November 26th! The author Vanessa Estrada Marin is also from Queens and worked with the North Shore Animal League and my good friend L. Ryan Storms wrote an additional portion of the book.

Here's a direct link to the book at Penguin Random House's site, but it's available for pre-order on Amazon. It will also be at Barnes & Noble, Powell's, Hudson Booksellers, Target, Walmart and as an ebook. If you like it, positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are always helpful for authors!

I was obsessed with horses as a kid and spent an inordinate amount of time poring over the delightful drawings in "Happy Horsemanship" by Dorothy Henderson Pinch to convince my mom to let me take horseback riding lessons. I can only hope this book does for children who love dogs what that book did for me as a young reader. While working on this book, I also reminisced about my sister Kelly and her friend Devon taking dog training classes at the local kennel with their pups. I'm a proud aunt to three dogs: Luna, Aria and Auger. Though it's been a long time since I've had a dog of my own, according to my mom my first "words" were panting like our giant black dog Aspen. Drawing this book definitely scratched my dog itch, although I'm now following a problematic number of rescue sites on Instagram in the name of research.

Here's a look at one of my drawings from the initial rough sketch to final art. This was the first time I was using Procreate to draw on an iPad and I ended up doing most of the art in that program, only switching to Photoshop to compile everything and save the files as CMYK for final delivery. Thank you to Aimee Fleck at Penguin Random for the opportunity and her design input on this project!