Short Section Of Text Edited Out Of A Larger Piece Im Working On About The Death Of My Son This Last

Short section of text edited out of a larger piece I’m working on about the death of my son this last winter. We were watching the Lord of the Rings films trying to just get through the day when we wandered accidentally into this particularly revelatory scene. The idea for the sequence came whole cloth into my head and I wanted to put it down to comic form before I forgot. 

Steadily working...

Finishing up a page at last...

Sometime this summer I began building a set of floor to ceiling bookshelves using an old set I built way back when I lived in Houston. They were inspired by a set of beautiful floor to ceiling shelves my father had built in the house where I grew up. At the time I began them, I had hoped my son would be able to grow up in a house with a similar set of shelves. Books are important to me. Language, communication, and expression are important to me. I had hoped to share that with my child. Instead, I am closing out the year building a memorial to him. I haven't worked as hard on comics or writing because I've been working on this. Today it was 5 degrees. I was outside, after working an overnight shift, cutting wood to continue this project. This is 2017. This is how my year ended. I just wanted to share this with you kind folks. I'll post more as this project continues.

For the last month or so, I have undertaken one of the most difficult writing and illustration projects I've ever attempted. I wrote the piece both about and for my son, who, as many of you know, passed shortly after his birth in November. As difficult as the time spent writing and drawing the piece was, I saw the labor of it as an opportunity to try to recall what happened to us and to recover the details that have begun to fade somewhat into the fragility of memory. As a document it helps me to see better what we went through, but it also grants me a chance, one last one, to speak to him.

That work is now due to appear in the first issue of a quarterly print edition from the cartooning website The Nib, which is being Kickstarted today. If you would like to read the piece, receive a copy, or help to fund the Kickstarter, you can do so here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thenib/the-nib-magazine

I may be building a thing soon...