It’s the two-year anniversary of CATS: A Sketchbook coming to print! To celebrate, I’m sharing some of the sketches from the sketchbook. Here is this week’s batch of sketches.
Come back next week for the next batch!
Thank you for checking in.
You. Are. Awesome.
My friends Ben, Chloe, and I are playing through yet another round of Monster Road Trip on Ben’s Twitch channel. During the playthrough one of us quipped, “We need art of Warm Walter spooning Doug!”
So that’s what I drew.
This is *not* my first Monster Prom-related fanart. (I will share more as the year goes on). Honestly, it’s so fun for me to draw. It’s an art style that’s right in my lane.
Mini-prints of this will be coming soon to conventions and in-person events this year!
Thanks for checking in.
You. Are. Awesome.
At the start of 2025, I had one goal shared here on the blog: The No-Buy 2025.
In short, the goal was to not buy anything superfluous in 2025. Only necessities. No buying from major corporations (because fuck you, Amazon and Wal-Mart).
I actually managed to fulfill this objective…for the most part.
There were only two times that I lapsed: the end of August, and the first weekend of November. The reasons being that the end of August was hell week (I’ll get to that in a minute), and the first weekend of November was a trip/quasi-vacation to the DC area.
Now, I did keep to my promise of No Amazon, No Wal-Mart, No Home Depot. Technically, I didn’t buy from Target, either, especially during the boycott organized by the Black community at the start of the year. I have to add “technically” because in October-ish, a very kind lady from the UU church I attend helped get me a new slow cooker and a Ninja toaster oven (because my actual oven in this apartment is doing *something* that makes the alarms go off any time I cook or bake over 400 degrees).
Still, I didn’t buy from major corporations (except Kroger or Michaels sometimes). If I had to buy anything, I thrifted, traded, found mutual aid, and found local stores.
So, long story short – my younger sibling (and co-creator of Seeing Him and An Ignorance of Romance) moved in with me in January. We moved apartments in May/June. And then they moved fully out in August. During this time, and especially during the move-out period in August, they became the roommate from hell. Folks who have been on my newsletter since July know what happened. But the TL;DR of it is that this sibling needs some fucking intervention and it can’t be from me, because I’m tired of being the savings account of a borderline personality patient who treats animals like a pair of pants to be replaced when they die, and drops everyone and everything as soon as a boy comes into their life.
Part of the reason I even did the No-Buy Year was because I knew, going into the year, that this sibling would be living with me, and they have no savings whatsoever. They’re in the process of trying to file for bankruptcy for a second time (they failed the first time because the paperwork wasn’t in order).
But since September, I’ve been living on my own, and trying to rebuild my savings. On top of that, I do not like this apartment complex I was forced to move to. We only moved here because of my sibling’s garbage credit score, and they moved out within 3 months of signing the lease. As soon as this lease is out this upcoming May, I’m moving again. Which means I have to build up savings again.
I’m going through YearCompass, which helps to reflect on the year just lived and plan for the year coming ahead. I did my reflection for 2025, and if you thought what I wrote above was rough, that was just half of the year. It doesn’t cover:
But also that did not cover:
There were also more personal wins, but those wins are for my private life.
I’m still meditating on my goals for 2026, but the biggest one is: save back as much money as possible. I want to rebuild from this past year, and I want to move to a better apartment with better management than the people at this current complex.
Everything else? I will write about at the start of 2026.
I don’t know about you, but I’m taking a break for the rest of the year. That means, until January 2026:
The Legend of Jamie Roberts will still update on Wednesdays, and Vanita and the Demon King will still update on Fridays.
With all of that said, it’s time for the break to start. I hope you also take some time for yourself during this season.
Thanks for reading.
You. Are. Awesome.
The following open letter was written as a letter to the editor of a regional newspaper. The newspaper serves an area where the library was under threat of losing funding for carrying LGBTQ+ books like my book, The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1. (For more on that, I wrote a blog post all about it here.)
Dear Editors,
A local resident emailed me recently to let me know there are people in Steubenville trying to cut funding for your local libraries. Why? Because the libraries are carrying books like mine, The Legend of Jamie Roberts. The books I write have LGBTQ+ characters. This is reason enough for some people to try and convince others to cut funding from your local libraries.
That’s unfortunate. Because public libraries are great places to seek stories and information from perspectives besides your own. These folks will try to couch it in “concern for the children.” But it’s not about the children at this point. More on that in a second.
Here’s the thing. Public libraries have books on all kinds of subjects and points of view. Personally, I disagree with JD Vance, Ann Coulter, and Bill O’Reilly. Do I want their books banned? No. Do I want the libraries to have their funding cut because they carry those books? No.
Public libraries are a public good for everyone in every community. No matter your political leanings or religious beliefs. I’m an LGBTQ+ author and former librarian who regularly goes to church on Sunday. Those that read my books, know that.
About those “concerns for the children” – I grew up with people who tried to limit access to stories by and about LGBTQ+ people (limited as they were when I was a child). Did it work? No. I still found those books and read them. All that these “concerns for the children” instilled in me is that the adults in my life tried to control what I read and could access. Once I got to read these books, that made me question the legitimacy of their authority more than anything else. Why would they try to keep these books out of my hands? Why were they trying to dictate what I could read? They can try to hide behind “concerns for the children” all they want. The real reason is because they want to control what you know and learn, and keep you afraid of certain, specific people.
Young people should be curious and engaged in their world. That’s what books foster. It’s better to be curious and engaged than blindly obedient. If people want their kids to grow and thrive, encourage them to engage with their curiosity and to read broadly.
I am firmly against censorship, no matter if it manifests as explicit book banning or trying to cut funding for public libraries.
I don’t just write this to voice my thoughts, though. I also write this to encourage your readers to start attending library board meetings, and write letters to library board members and the local board of education. Talk to friends and encourage them to do the same.
Public libraries are shaped by the input of their readers and their local community. So what kind of community is Steubenville trying to form?
//
That’s all for now. Thank you for your support.
You. Are. Awesome.
Here is “Morning Canyon Discovery,” an illustration I did in Clip Studio Paint.
Originally, I drew this for a comics anthology. But the organizers said this wasn’t “comic-y” enough. I didn’t have the turnaround time to change it, so I just dropped out. At least now I can show you this.
I’m REALLY pleased with how this came together, too! I really wanted to play with dramatic angles and lighting in this one.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
That’s all for now. Thank you for tuning in!
You. Are. Awesome.
P.S. Here’s the sketch I did before doing the final piece.
