Art & Comics by Katherine Roy

Sorry this is late! Two more weeks of installments for this story section, folks.

Last week we had the honor of meeting Art Spiegelman at The Center for Cartoon Studies! He happened to be in the area and offered to meet with students and hold an informal discussion about his work, his career, and his experience with comics publishing. He was funny and charming, and, to our amusement and awe, chain smoked through his entire lecture. I can’t even remember the last time I saw someone smoke indoors in a public space.

A couple of days ago I decided to buy some valerian root extract for the first time. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, from the 4:30 sunrise and the stress of my to-do list, and I thought that making tea with valerian at night might help. The plant also grows naturally in our front yard, but after some internet research I wasn’t sure that it could be consumed raw.

So I went and asked at the Coop. “In herbalism, you’re supposed to ask the plant if it’s safe to eat,” said one of the natural medicine specialists. “Have you asked the plant?” I checked her expression and saw that she was being serious. “How does the plant answer?” I asked. “I guess you just get a feeling,” she said. Having never had a conversion with a plant before, I wasn’t sure that I was qualified to risk my digestive health on my cross-species linguistic skills, so I went ahead and bought the extract anyway.

But, as strange as it sounds to ask a plant a question, I think stories work in a similar way. My husband, Tim Stout, has been coaching me on stories and how they work, and there seems to be a parallel strategy: ask the story what it wants, and listen to its answer. And the story will start to talk to you. I’ve had several false starts with this next section of Hieroglyph, which has been very frustrating, but I know the solution isn’t too far away. It’s a matter of clearing my head enough to listen. And who knows! Maybe I’ll hear something new from my story today. And if not, there’s a plant in the front yard who’s probably feeling neglected. I should go out at chat at my next 4:30am wake-up.

The building of the Nilo-O-Meter, and the subsequent discovery of the circumference of the Earth, was the most fascinating component of the crocodile temple at Kom Ombo. It’s easy to marginalize the Egyptian culture into a sideshow of mummies and sphinxes, but this, here… what a magnificent example of our curiosity and ingenuity as a civilization, and as a species, over 3,000 years ago. We have come so far, and yet I suspect that we are much the same as ever.

I hope that the chapter of Hieroglyph that I’m working on now can explore this further. I’m having my own creative war right now, but I suspect the solution isn’t too far away.

This week has kept me busy with graphic design work, a few self-promotion tasks, and a new caterpillar story for Boston Inbound’s upcoming comics anthology. Theme? Food! What a great subject.

Enjoy Hieroglyph! Next page will be posted on Thursday!

What a week! Full days spent working on Hieroglyph chapter one, punctuated by freelance work and taxes (yes, we’re still trying to get things squared away with our renter’s rebate– may it be over soon…), and Tim was away in NYC meeting editors and doing informational interviews. Everything is going well, but we find ourselves very busy. Today it’s time to catch up and get a little work done, and clean up our much neglected living room.

Some week highlights:

On Thursday I had the privilege to be the in-house documentary cartoonist for the Vermont Arts Council Annual Meeting at the State House in Montpelier, VT.  I drew everyone I could, as fast as I could, and then my drawings were displayed during the reception. I had so much fun!

And yesterday, Saturday, Tim and I drove down to the Eric Carle Museum to visit the “Celebrating Dogs in Picture Books” event, attend Jules Feiffer’s talk, and meet Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth and long time friend of Jules’. I was SO excited to meet Norton and take a photo with the two of them. Their book has meant so much to me both as a kid and as an adult, and was a strong inspiration for my interest in picture books and cartooning to begin with. Their only other book together, The Odious Ogre, comes out this Fall. From my sneak preview the book looks just beautiful. I’ll be first in line!