Karen L. Mead

I haven’t been posting much to my blog lately because I really haven’t been writing, and I don’t feel like blogging if I’m not working on my books. Most people who visit this site are here because they’ve read the Demonic Cafe books and might want more news on them, and I feel bad being like, “No news on the books, sorry, why don’t I just tell you about this irrelevant thing that’s on my mind?”

Lately though, even though writing has been very difficult, I’ve felt a strong urge to draw that I haven’t felt for a long time, so I’ve been working on a comic. It’s a fantasy comic called Acorn Scramble, and I’ve roughed out the first issue (or chapter– whatever you want to call it.)

On the one hand, this is kind of stupid. I should be writing books! People actually pay money for my books! No one has ever given me money for making comics!

On the other, it’s been my experience that creativity begets more creativity. I don’t really know why writing prose became so difficult, but I’m better off doing something creative than nothing. And doing comics brings me joy.

It will still probably be awhile before I have a finished issue of Acorn Scramble, since I’m up to the point where I need to redraw everything digitally in Clip Studio Paint, and I’m still learning the software. I used the company’s previous software, Manga Studio, years ago, but CSP is light-years more sophisticated. I’ve also been really into the artwork in ’80s superhero comics lately, where there is just a feast of detail, and I’d like to emulate that to some extent. I also need to practice drawing horses, so Moxil looks more like an actual foal and less like a My Little Pony.

So that’s my update for now. I’ll post some art as I’m going along, and with any luck, I’ll get back to working on Demonic Cafe soon too.