It’s been almost two weeks since we started the Kickstarter project, and we’re off to a great start! I’ve got my fingers crossed that we’re going to meet our goal. If you’re reading this out there, thank you so much for your help in pledging and sharing the Kickstarter on facebook, twitter, forums and wherever!

For the last few days I’ve been scanning and retouching the old pages of Dream-Quest, while working on the cover of the graphic novel. Among the stacks are many images I drew for advertisements and things, many sketches, and many revised versions of pages or panels I drew for Edward Martin III’s Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath movie. The piece at the top of this page was drawn for a Dream-Quest flyer I sent out to comic shops. I’ve got tons more random bits of art like this, but there’s so much I’m not sure what to post up. Some of it will go into a gallery in the back of the book; maybe I’ll put the rest up on this blog.

Lately I’ve been rereading my Lord Dunsany and Gary Myers and struggling through the classic hollow earth novel Etidorhpa. I’ve also been listening a lot to the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast, which most folks reading this blog probably already know about. This site is incredible. It’s really refreshing to hear a Lovecraft podcast that goes back to the original writing without all the later pop culture mythology added by August Derleth and Chaosium and everyone (not that I don’t own and adore the Chaosium books myself). The show has great production values — music and foley and all — and most importantly, Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey are hilarious. This show manages the wonderful feat of viewing Lovecraft simultaneously through the lenses of literary critics, historians, enthusiastic monster/sci-fi/horror fans who love this stuff and take it seriously, and snarky adults who don’t let Lovecraft off the hook for his occasional bad writing and frequent racism. I’d recommend this podcast to anyone, and it’s great to listen to in the background while you’re drawing Lovecraftian comics. I’d like to listen to it in bed, too (although I’ve already listened to all the dream story podcasts, so I don’t think I could use the podcast to mystically transport me into the dreamworld), but Jay prefers to fall asleep while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. (We both love Doctor Who, though.)

A quick announcement — I’ll be at the Jet City Comic Show this Saturday, September 24 in Seattle! Please stop by the table, I’ll probably have the cover of the graphic novel there, and hopefully some other new stuff. Speaking of which, I’m going to be drawing another 8-page Lovecraft comic very soon, possibly before the end of this year. Which one? That’s up to the person who pledged for it to decide. I’ll post when I find out!